#like i have enough to worry about with gravity and all of the physics without struggling with the damn controls

[lesbianshadowheart]

Outer Wilds is literally so good if not for the biggest part of the gameplay

[darkmatilda]

𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐟 | 𝐬. 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: spencer takes care of you after a serious accident.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: hospital, rehabilitation, neck and brain injury, nud1ty

𝐚/𝐧: this is one of the potential endings of my fanfiction "with the light off" which officialy remains open up to your own interpretation. this version written to comfort all the hearts i've broken <3

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 11k

Spencer felt embarrassed by how, just an hour after leaving the apartment, he already wanted to call her.

She had already occupied a near-constant presence in the back of his mind, slipping in like a shadow—elusive and playful—darting between his thoughts, flitting from one corner to another whenever he tried, even briefly, to forget about her. But now? After that night they had spent together?

Spencer knew a lot about obsession. He understood the weight of the word and was acutely aware of its gravity. Yet he couldn’t deny it—he was obsessed with her. Physical contact had always been a sensitive yet profoundly significant subject for him. He didn’t allow many people that close. 

For him, touch was the ultimate proof of closeness and trust. Intimacy bred attachment. This wasn’t about desire in its rawest form—it was something else… though he wasn’t entirely sure what. He couldn’t define the bond they shared.

He felt bored, detached from the world when she wasn’t in it, and the only thing keeping him tethered to some semblance of normality was the thought—the imagining—that at this very moment, they were breathing the same air.

He was starting to think he might be losing his mind.

He held off on calling her precisely to avoid coming across as a lunatic in her eyes. He managed to restrain himself only once he was at work, where the seriousness of his profession demanded it. In a way, though, he felt lighter. Throughout the day, he was buoyed by the thought of their upcoming meeting, the excitement it brought—and the nerves. That mixture of emotions was enough to make the entire team glance at him with curiosity.

Garcia was handing out case files, her hair recently dyed a vibrant shade of red. Rossi, instead of opening his folder like everyone else, was watching Spencer from across the table, leaning on his elbow.

“Did you win the lottery or something?” he asked, so unexpectedly that Spencer glanced around at the others, unsure who the question was meant for.

When he realized the question was directed at him, he swallowed hard. Morgan’s raised eyebrow seemed to challenge him to a duel.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Because you’re practically glowing, sweetheart,” Penelope chimed in with a sly smile. “Don’t think you’re getting away without telling me everything later. I’ll get it out of you, don’t you worry. But for now, let’s get started…”

They immersed themselves in the case, but a few hours later, during a brief moment of downtime, he realized he was looking for an excuse to call her. Was a simple desire to ask what she was up to reason enough?

He wondered if she was still at his apartment. He hoped she was. He knew she’d eventually have to leave to prepare for the shift she was starting later that afternoon, but he couldn’t shake the unease gnawing at him about the whole situation with her roommate’s ex-boyfriend.

Realizing he’d been staring at his phone for far too long and that he’d soon need to get back to work, he made a snap decision and called.

But no one answered.

Logically, he reasoned that mornings were probably her time to sleep. Afterward, he tried sending a text message. But by late evening, when he finally returned to his apartment, he was starting to feel genuinely worried.

The question nagged at him: could it have been about the previous night? Maybe he’d done or said something wrong, something that had put her off completely?

Slowly, he walked into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway as his eyes landed on the perfectly made bed. It definitely hadn’t looked like that when he left it.

Then his gaze fell on the slightly ajar safe, and he froze. The combination was incredibly complicated, so he must have left it open when he took out his gun and badge. Besides those items, there was one more thing inside.

He had once again fallen into the trap of keeping Dilaudid close, even though he wasn’t using it. Was it possible she found it, and that’s why she hadn’t reached out?

It wasn’t that he had lied to her about being clean. She had seen how much effort it took for him to talk about it, so she approached the subject with incredible subtlety, never asking directly, but watching him closely, carefully, yet without pressing.

If she had really found it in his safe, she might have felt betrayed. Or maybe she decided she didn’t want to get involved with someone who had such a problem. Perhaps she had seen the whole previous night as one big mistake and then decided to throw him out of her life. Spencer, though it pained him, couldn’t help but feel that he deserved it.

He sat on the bed, crushed by his own thoughts. Something didn’t sit right with the version of events he had imagined. First and foremost, she wasn’t the type of person who would turn him away because of this. Her heart ached to help others; she couldn’t ignore someone else’s troubles. Even if he had hurt her, her immense capacity for understanding would have remained intact. Empathy was imprinted on her, like a deep, unshakable mark.

Driven by a hunch, he reached for his phone to call her again. That’s when he noticed two missed calls from an unknown number, just fifteen minutes ago.

He pressed the phone to his ear, his brow furrowing in confusion as he heard the first sound on the other end… a sob?

The sound went on and on, and Spencer was too confused to utter a single word.

“Who am I talking to?” he finally asked. Unable to stop himself, he stood up. He didn’t even know what was going on or who he was talking to, but he sprang to his feet anyway. His body compelled him, his insides twisting with unpleasant spasms.

It could just as well have been some stupid prank. The problem was, it wasn’t.

“H-hey, it’s J-Jude,” a voice came from the other end. Female, shaky, and choked with sobs so severe that if he didn’t already know her name, he would never have guessed he was speaking to her roommate. He stopped pacing the room. “I-it was me…I called earlier. S-she doesn’t have any…any family, and I didn’t know…I didn’t know who to inform…I can’t handle this on my own…they just took her away again…”

It wasn’t as if the world suddenly came to a halt. It simply became both sharper and blurrier at the same time. Spencer could see that single, bright strand of hair on the pillow with perfect clarity, yet his own legs seemed out of reach. When he looked down, all he saw was darkness stretching below him. Somehow, he was still breathing.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. Later, he couldn’t explain how his voice—those first words—had sounded so composed. “W-who took her… where… and why…?

“I have no fucking idea!” she shouted, followed by a long silence during which Jude took a desperate gasp of air. “I mean, I do, I do know! They just brought her in, but... but suddenly they took her back because there was some kind of…bleeding…”

“...ding?” he blurted out, the first syllable swallowed entirely by his panic.

“No, I don’t want anything to calm me down, I am calm, can’t you tell?” Her voice grew distant, as if she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth. Then it came back, clear and pleading. “Please, come here…”

She hung up. The phone slipped from his hand as if it burned him. In a frenzy, he bent down to grab it, only to drop it again. Finally, he fell to his knees, managing at last to pick it up. As he stood, he felt as though some substance was spreading through his brain—black, toxic, and utterly destructive. Its effects left him barely tethered to reality. He could hear and see, but everything was overlaid with Jude’s words, looping in his mind like printed text on a screen.

The next thirty minutes were a blur.

How could it be logically explained that, in a state of complete detachment from the outside world, he somehow managed to figure out, based on the map of the area imprinted in his memory, which specific hospital she was in? How did his panicked, trembling hands manage to cover that distance by car without causing an accident?

The only thing he knew was that he ended up at the nearest hospital, wearing just a shirt with no outer layer. It was shocking that he even had shoes on. 

He should have been looking for the woman who had called him, demanding every bit of information she had. But somehow, instinctively, his eyes searched for someone else—a familiar face. He prayed it was all some sort of misunderstanding. Maybe he was fooling himself, hoping to spot her among the people passing by. A part of him simply refused to accept the possibility that anything could have happened to her.

Nothing had happened.

She was fine.

Her blue eyes were soaking in the surroundings, their gaze carrying that faint sparkle that always appeared at night. Maybe there was even a smile on her lips. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow himself to imagine what might have happened to her. It felt as though the universe itself should be ashamed for ever entertaining the thought of harming her.

"Are you family?" the man at reception asked. Spencer nodded. "I'm sorry, but I can't provide you with any information,"

"Just tell me, is she alive?"

"I can't…"

"Just fucking tell me…"

"They’re operating on her right now," a voice spoke from behind him. Spencer turned and blinked. Only then did he realize he was in a hospital. Before, he’d only had a goal—an urgent need to get there. The surroundings were just beginning to take shape in his mind. He had never seen this woman before, but he guessed it had to be Jude. Her face was swollen from crying, but she seemed less shaken than during their call. She had probably accepted the sedatives. "Again. First, they spent almost four hours working on her neck… they said she was stable, asleep, but then suddenly there was that bleeding… I watched them take her out of the room right in front of me…"

“Did you see her?”

Unexpectedly, she hid her face in her hands.

“I didn’t know who to call. She mentioned you a few times, and I had your number, and I didn’t know what to do…” she began explaining chaotically, as if it mattered at all. “It’s my fault, you know, all of this is my fucking fault…”

They were standing right in front of the receptionist, blocking his access to others who needed help. Spencer snapped back to the moment, pulling her a few steps aside.

“W-what did you say? That they operated on her for four hours?”

“Yes, the first time…”

So, she had been there for at least four hours. Longer, considering the time needed after surgery before visiting a patient. Pain spread across his chest. While he was wondering why she hadn’t answered his calls, coming to various conclusions, she had been fighting for her life?

He... had been at work, moving around, talking to others, living, while all of this was happening? He felt as if... as if he had betrayed her. It was absurd, even he knew that. Despite the state he was in—tragic, to be precise—he understood just how absurd that thought was. But he couldn’t stop the guilt and shame that washed over him every time he tried to imagine her on the operating table while he had been completely unaware of her condition.

“I need to sit down," Jude muttered, and after a moment, they found themselves on narrow chairs lined along the hospital walls. Spencer barely managed to force his knees to bend, his body to settle into the seat.

He was only beginning to adjust to the foreign gravity that was pressing down on him.

In his head, there was only one thought, one resolution, one desire. The only thing that could save him from losing his mind in this waiting room.

"I need to see her."

"We have to wait," Jude replied, pressing her hand to her forehead. More tears appeared in her eyes. She wasn’t just terrified, she was completely falling apart. "We... we once gave each other permission to access information about our health. You know, in case of an accident. The doctors told me everything. A neck sprain. A concussion. Two broken ribs and a broken forearm." Although her speech had been unclear earlier, when she listed the injuries, she sounded like a movie announcer.

Spencer quickly realized that these words must have been echoing in her head since they were first told to her. The same thing had been happening to him. Each word was like a blow delivered with full force, and his extensive medical knowledge wasn’t helping him avoid panic. He was too aware of the danger and too aware of the suffering her poor body must have endured.

They both squeezed their eyes shut tightly. Spencer felt as though his temples might explode. Waiting. Was there anything worse in the world than waiting? Being stuck in ignorance, teetering between uncertainty, relief, and utter despair? Feeling all of it at once?

"How did this even happen?" he asked the woman sitting next to him.

He was sure he already knew the answer to that question. She didn’t even need to say it. It was enough to see how she dropped her gaze, heavy with pain, and how tightly her jaw clenched.

“She... fell down the stairs.”

Spencer wanted to scoff at the understatement. The real version of events couldn’t pass Jude’s lips, but in some way, he considered that a blessing. If Jude had openly admitted that she had been pushed, he might have crumbled under the weight of the fury flooding him. But for now, his anger didn’t matter. Only the passing time did.

He felt as if he hadn’t taken a single breath since leaving his apartment. Leaning his head back in his seat, he endured what felt like two whole days, then glanced at his watch only to realize that exactly forty-seven seconds had passed.

Time—a relative concept. In physics and in human perception. Einstein had proven it, and so had that particular moment.

He started to fear that he might never leave the waiting room. Memories and emotions began to blur together. He formed a theory: that he had been trapped there for quite some time—weeks, perhaps. Back when another loved one had been on the operating table, and he’d been losing his mind in much the same way.

Could it be that, under the strain of this torturous waiting, he’d lost his sanity? That his brain, desperate for relief, had simply imagined everything that followed? The trip to the library that night, finding himself at her door, the string lights on the Christmas tree, the Venus flytrap, the bar, opening the door that night and seeing her on the stairwell—at once flushed from a night spent at the club and chilled from the December air?

And now that illusion had simply shattered, like a fragment of broken glass. He was back in the waiting room again, waiting, hurting too much—and yet feeling as though he had no right to. His pain was nothing compared to what she was going through. He should be doing something, anything, to make himself useful, to not succumb to the weight of his own helplessness.

When the doctor finally approached them, Spencer almost knocked over his chair in his haste to stand. The doctor, however, focused solely on Jude as he delivered the update, leaving Spencer questioning whether he even existed.

“We managed to stop the bleeding. That’s the good news,” he began, his dark eyes unreadable—at once cool and concerned, with the practiced composure characteristic of people in his profession.

“Thank God,” Jude whispered, rubbing her chest as if trying to calm the frantic beating of her heart.

Spencer, on the other hand, felt no relief. Not even a sliver.

"‘That’s good news,’" he repeated the doctor’s words, drawing the man’s gaze to him. ‘But… but is there something bad?’

That brief moment before the doctor answered felt longer than nearly the past two hours of waiting.

“Due to suspected brain swelling, we had to induce a coma.’

“What?’ Jude mouthed silently. “How… how could she be in a coma? Why? Was that necessary?’

“They needed to reduce the intracranial pressure,’ Spencer replied, the words spilling from his mouth without him even realizing he was speaking. ‘The coma prevents further damage and minimizes the brain’s oxygen consumption. But will she… how long will she…?’

“Only for a few days,’ the doctor assured him, understanding the question he couldn’t quite form. “As long as there are no further complications or additional bleeding. But I can reassure you for now: there’s no indication of that. Her condition seems stable. She was… incredibly lucky. It was a serious accident—a miracle, a sheer miracle—that she didn’t break her spine.’"

For a moment, he couldn’t utter a single word, his throat still tight, and the relief never came. He knew he wouldn’t feel it until he saw her, fully conscious and awake. Until that happened, he would grimace every time he heard the word miracle. 

"When will I be able to see her?" he asked, surprisingly calm and composed. The question was so important to him that his voice didn’t tremble even once. In fact, it was the only thing that mattered right now.

"You’ll need to wait a few hours before visiting. We have to make sure there’s no risk of a sudden deterioration in her condition. Also, only authorized individuals can visit her."

The last part of the doctor’s statement felt almost like a slap in the face.

"How many hours?" he pressed, impatience creeping into his voice. "Two? Four? Six?"

"Please, calm down," the doctor asked, making a gesture with his hand.

“Eight?”

His voice grew increasingly sharp, desperately demanding an answer. The doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Jude interrupted with a question.

"As an authorized person, can I, on behalf of the patient, allow him to visit?" she asked, catching Spencer’s gaze for a brief moment before quickly turning away. "She would want this, I know it."

The doctor shook his head in refusal, providing them with a few more details about the surgery before turning to leave. Spencer watched him leave, something in him wavering between a sigh and a snort. So they wouldn’t even let him visit her? He understood the hospital procedures and rules perfectly well, but when it came to his own case, he hated them with all his heart. They wouldn’t allow him to see someone who meant so much to him, simply because they weren’t bound by blood or a ring on his finger. A ring on his finger… maybe he should lie and say they were engaged?  Although, would it really make any difference in the eyes of the hospital staff?

Before the loose fragments in his mind began to form a plan, he noticed that Jude was staring at him. She had sat down again, pressing her back tightly against the chair's backrest. She hadn’t cried for a while now; a certain relief had settled on her face when she heard the surgery had been successful, but then the old devastation returned, stronger than ever before.

"I won’t be able to visit her," she said, her voice hollow. "Not even while she’s unconscious. And when she wakes up, look her in the eyes. Tell me, how could I do that after everything? After all of this was my fault?"

Spencer turned away and walked off.

He knew that if he didn’t, something inside him would break. He couldn’t stop the anger he felt toward Jude. From what he knew, she had repeatedly refused to report her ex-boyfriend to the police, perhaps more or less aware of the danger he posed. She had the right to do so, theoretically. But that didn’t change the fact that someone else had suffered because of her foolish decision.

In his eyes she deserved the guilt she felt.

Not knowing what to do with himself, he found a place far from her, far from anyone, where he spent the next few hours, hardly moving. Sometimes he observed the relatives of other patients in the hospital, also broken, but he had some selfish feeling that even they wouldn’t understand what he felt. He placed himself on some distant, elite orbit of suffering and felt almost embarrassed by it. 

Pain always makes sure that a person feels as lonely and misunderstood as possible in it. That is when it has the most power over them.

He kept away from the windows, the darkness outside, slowly losing its intensity, putting him into a state of shock and contemplation. Maybe time was a relative concept, but that didn’t change the fact that it existed. Somewhere far away, there was light beyond this waiting room.

For some time now, he had been occupied with a certain task. He was aware of the hours passing and how, with them, his desperation grew. He felt he would go mad if he didn’t see her. The designated time during which the patient should be ensured complete rest after surgery had ended, yet he knew they wouldn’t let him in to see her. But he had a brain for a reason, right?"

He found the room where everything that mattered to him at that moment was. A young doctor was just leaving.

"Excuse me, ma'am,” he approached her politely, trying to appear calm, though his appearance and trembling hands clearly suggested otherwise. “I need to visit this patient.”

“Are you a relative?”

“No, actually…” He knew this was a desperate move and resorting to a lie, but he didn’t care. What was morality in his situation? Just a word. He reached for the badge he had with him and cleared his throat. “I’m with the FBI. I’ve been assigned to see this particular patient; it’s a matter that cannot be delayed."

Believe it or not, but people often lost their minds at the mere mention of the FBI. Spencer suspected that such a young doctor might have some gaps in experience and not know what procedures were in place in such a situation.

The surprised woman took a half step back.

“But she’s in a coma…” she said uncertainly, turning toward the room. “Are you sure it’s this patient?”

“Absolutely. And as I said, there’s no time to waste.”

He didn’t put his badge away, still holding it raised, with a serious expression on his face, as if he were interrogating someone. It was clear she was torn with doubt, but fortunately for him, she decided to give in without consulting the decision.

Spencer almost ran into the room, unable to hold back his impatience any longer. At first, he felt as if in a dream, one where you achieve your greatest goal. However, it quickly turned into a nightmare, all because of what he saw.

Whatever he had imagined, he was not prepared for this sight. 

Especially because before he even noticed her face, the face he was so desperate to see, he first noticed everything else surrounding it. The hospital equipment, the machines and devices monitoring her vital signs. The wide orthopedic collar tight around her neck. The sterile whiteness of it all, obscuring her and making her almost disappear against its backdrop. It wasn’t until he approached the bed, his legs weak and unsteady, that he started to look at her, but again, not specifically at her, but at the injuries. The sight of swollen temples, the sunken eyes, pale and dry lips, skin like a sheet of paper. Every injury on her body caused him unimaginable pain, so intense it almost stopped him from breathing. He felt so much anger and injustice that she had to go through this that he almost wanted to fall to his knees and apologize to her, beg for forgiveness. For what? He couldn’t decide. It wasn’t a need driven by logic, it was something deep inside him.

And that’s what he did, even though there was a place beside the bed where he could sit. He slowly knelt down, his hands touching the edge of the bed, but not her body. After all, he wasn’t about to risk causing her any pain due to his lack of control. But he had such an overwhelming desire to take her hand, the one whose fingers shyly peeked out from under the cast.

"I should have gone with you," he said, after about five minutes spent in complete silence, undisturbed even by his breath, which he was holding back. "I should have. Walked you to the door and made sure you got inside safely. I’m sorry…"

He felt that with his pitiful apologies, he was disturbing her peace. She needed it to fully rest. So, he fell silent again, alternating between looking at her with furrowed brows in tender concern and resting his forehead against the edge of the bed whenever the sight became too painful. While before, time seemed to crawl at the slowest possible pace, now it was racing forward wildly.

In his perception, barely a minute had passed when someone’s presence appeared behind him. He turned over his shoulder, noticing the young nurse who had let him in, and it took him a long time before he even realized it. After all, he had lied to her, saying it was some professional matter, yet she had found him kneeling by the hospital bed.

He quickly got to his feet, nervously rubbing his face.

“For the patient’s well-being, no visits should last longer than twenty minutes,” the woman said surprisingly gently, leaning slightly against the door with her shoulder. An unidentified expression lingered in her eyes, making them seem...warm.

He didn’t answer, just nodded. He no longer felt the need to play that little charade that had helped him get inside. He allowed himself one last long moment, looking at her face, peaceful in sleep. He passed the doctor in the doorway, feeling her eyes turn to him, and he did the same, out of curiosity. She smiled, sadly and with compassion.

"This had nothing to do with any FBI assignment, right?”

Her understanding seemed almost touching. However, Spencer, caught in the moment, quickly withdrew, once again making his way down the hospital corridors, now completely unsure of what to do with himself. He leaned against one of the walls, slowly feeling the fatigue from the entire night spent waiting to see her. He found his phone in his pocket, realized it was already morning, and that… Hotch had called him.

It was a quick collision with the outside world. He called back, as nothing else came to mind that he could focus on.

"Reid," the serious voice of his boss came through on the other end. "Why aren’t you at work, and why aren’t you answering?"

He needed to take a breath before he could respond.

"Sorry, Hotch," he said, trying not to sound weak, but that’s exactly how he sounded. Weak, a little pitiful, and on the verge of exhaustion. "Something... something really important happened, and... I... I won’t be able to come in today..."

Spencer realized he had no idea how to explain himself in this situation.

"I can’t remember the last day you were even late. What happened?" He didn’t answer. "Where are you?" Silence. "Spencer."

"It’s... a personal matter."

There was a brief silence from his boss, and Spencer could almost imagine how he furrowed his dark brows in confusion.

"I understand." His voice was tense, but not with disapproval, which surprised Spencer. More with... concern. Had he managed to read the seriousness of the situation just from his voice? Probably, after all, he was the best profiler Spencer knew. "You’ll need to explain later, but for now... take care of yourself. Do you need any help?”

He assured him insincerely that everything was fine and found an empty chair to sit in, hunched over. A strong pressure formed in his head, amplified by the helplessness and uncertainty about what he should do next. She was in a coma, and according to the doctor, she would be in it for the next few days. And what was he supposed to do during that time? He felt that physically, he could spend another hundred hours on that specific chair. Occasionally stretching his legs. It was his plan, one that seemed more real with every passing minute. At least, until a figure cast its shadow over him.

"Reid," a familiar voice spoke.

He looked up, surprised, at Morgan. His mouth was slightly open in confusion, his forehead deeply furrowed.

"What are you doing here?"

"How... how did you know where I was?" That was the first thing that came to his mind.

"Penelope. How she knew, I have no idea, but I’m starting to suspect that her joke about having us all chipped wasn’t really a joke. But anyway, what’s going on? Hotch told me you called, and you sounded... unsettling."

His friend was watching him closely. His wrinkled clothes, his tired face.

"So... Hotch sent you to find me?"

"Reid, you’re our friend. Did you really think we wouldn’t be worried about you?"

Spencer lowered his head, listening to his words. Derek was silent for a moment, his hands resting on his hips, his tense face scanning the surroundings. After a while, he focused his gaze back on him.

"Who is the person you’re visiting?"

He hesitated before answering, not because he didn’t want to share the information, but because he wasn’t sure how to refer to her. What should he call her? After all, it wasn’t like they were in an official relationship, and the word friend seemed to leave something unsaid.

“Someone... someone very important to me. She had an accident. She has... a cervical spine injury, and the doctors, suspecting brain swelling, decided to put her into a coma for a while.”

Morgan's eyes widened.

“Damn, Reid. I’m so... I’m so sorry.”

He sat down on the empty chair beside him, his face still showing shock. Exhausted, Spencer simply rested his head on his knees, no longer able to keep his posture straight. He felt drained, yet at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to leave—couldn’t leave her…

Morgan’s hand fell onto his back, and finally, then sighed.

“Come here, man.”

With a firm pull, he drew him into an embrace.

Spencer found it hard to admit, even to himself, how much he needed this. No words left their mouths for a long while; only that brotherly, supportive embrace remained between them.

“Have you seen her?” Morgan asked after a while.

He confirmed, but didn’t reveal the circumstances. His friend paused for a moment, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

“Okay, listen to me. You need to get back to yourself.”

Spencer scoffed and shook his head, ready to argue.

“Let me finish. I know you don’t want to leave her right now, but with all due respect, you look like death. You need to eat and get some sleep.”

“I can’t,” Spencer replied firmly.

“You’re going to collapse soon. You said she’ll be in a coma for a few days. You won’t make it sitting here, think realistically. No one’s asking you to go back to work, you just need to rest.” He looked at him seriously, knowing how hard it would be to convince him. Finally, he sighed once more. “Do it for her, alright? Do you really think she’d want you to wear yourself out like this?”

He had no ready answer for that. Well, he did, but it sounded like no, she wouldn’t want that.

“I’ll take you home. For God’s sake, you came here without even a coat?”

It's a strange feeling to let someone take care of you. Completely. Derek not only drove him to his apartment but also came inside with him. There was no emotional discussion between them, which he found to be a relief. Silent support, he thought.

His relationship with the other team members had been tested after Emily's death—or at least, that's what he had thought up until now. He had begun isolating himself, not wanting to intrude on their grief or burden them with his own problems. But in reality—something he hadn’t seen until now—it had been the opposite. It strengthened their bond.

The next few days revolved mainly around hospital visits. Somehow, he had managed to gain visiting rights, and the time spent by her side filled him with a certain sense of calm. He could see how stable her vital signs were, and he clung to the doctors’ reassurances that she would regain consciousness in just a few days.

He once read a series of articles and interviews with people who had been in comas. Their accounts sometimes contradicted medical facts and often included embellishments, but a significant number of them mentioned remembering the voices of loved ones and certain sounds.

He didn’t want her to remember only the sounds of medical equipment from this period. But he also wasn’t sure what he could talk to her about. Would she want to hear about the overly salted carbonara that Garcia had forced an entire pot of on him? Or about the abstract mural being painted across from his apartment—something he was sure she would have liked?

In the end, he decided to read to her, though choosing what to read proved challenging. Sleeping Beauty seemed too ironic, even though she would probably laugh about it later. She had once told him Girl, Interrupted was her favorite book, but its hospital setting made him suspect she might prefer something that let her escape this place, even if only in her imagination. The Silence of the Lambs referenced one of their past conversations, but if a doctor overheard him reading it to her, he would surely be banned from visiting altogether.

“All right,” he began one day, sitting down in the chair by her bed. “I know you’re not a big fan of fantasy. And yes, you’ll have every right to call me out on this when you wake up. But still, I hope you’ll like it.”

Arabian Nights was a collection of tales and stories originating from the Middle East, India, and Persia. Somehow, he assumed that the mysterious, often nocturnal atmosphere might resonate with her, even soothe her. After all, night had always been her favorite time of day—the backdrop to so much of her life.

That day, as he was about to leave, he leaned slightly over her bed, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Tomorrow, I'll read you a romance, how does that sound? But I’ll have to go to the bookstore because, despite your beliefs, I don’t have any in my collection. I wish I’d had more time to get to know your reading preferences better."

During none of his previous visits had he touched her, afraid it might disturb her peace in some negative way. Besides... in the state she was in, she looked so fragile and delicate that he feared even the slightest touch could hurt her. But that time, he simply couldn’t hold back. After a long internal struggle, he placed a very brief kiss on her forehead.

Spencer couldn’t keep his promise. While he did buy a romance novel recommended to him with enthusiasm by a young bookstore clerk, he never had the chance to read it to her.

The next day, he received a message. 

She had woken up. 

*

You didn’t remember much.

Only fragmented scraps. The memories began with a brief moment of complete physical helplessness, a terrible pain in your neck, and a series of flashing lights mingling with raised voices—even shouting. Then came silence, vile and terrifying.

But that wasn’t the end. Something came after the silence.

Softly spoken stories. For some reason, they were comforting. In your mind, only a few blurred images remained—no clear events or words. What you remembered most was that soothing, calm voice. It felt like an embrace, like warm bedding, the first rays of cosmic light piercing through clouds, or the gentle chill of evening air.

It was… beautiful. But it couldn’t last forever. After an indeterminate amount of time, your body decided to reject that comfort and tried to open its eyes. It was an excruciating effort. You sighed with the strain. The first colors and surreal shapes began to appear before you. Slowly, you started to become aware of your existence, yet at the same time, you felt suspended somewhere outside your body and mind—alone and terrified.

The sensations were both faint and overwhelmingly intense, making you want to hide, to somehow cut yourself off from them. Yet you were equally afraid to close your eyes again. You muttered things that made no sense. You remained in this panicked state until two tiny brown points hovered above you, widening with concern. Only then were you able to calm down—at least enough to stop straining your body with attempts to move. Attempts, because your body seemed entirely unwilling to follow your commands.

The fear buried itself deep within you, drilling into your chest. At first, it suffocated you, but eventually, it began to weaken and fade.

This was how the first hours after waking from the coma unfolded.

Weakness, disorientation, mumbling, pain, discomfort, and light sensitivity.

It took a long time before you regained awareness of being in a hospital. Even more time passed before you remembered why. And then, your own condition and state.

You were so incredibly weak that it filled you with disgust, terrified by how much effort even the smallest movement required—like the twitch of a finger or the blink of an eye. Frustrated by it all, you cried, and he cried too. But his tears were born of relief and joy.

Those two specific emotions reached you the latest—only after they transferred you to a different ward, and your thoughts began to clear. Relief and joy. Hand in hand with fear and anxiety. 

It felt so unreal, yet it was real—real like nothing else, and it held you tightly, exactly the way you needed it to.

*

Spencer was aware that her awakening was just another step in a very long journey.

His medical knowledge, modestly speaking, was fairly extensive, and he understood the gravity of the injuries she had sustained. Their first meeting after she had opened her eyes for the first time was nothing like a scene from a movie. She was confused, still drowsy, and as she slowly started to comprehend everything, she was primarily terrified. Her body, after the time spent in the coma, though brief, was extremely weak, and every little movement exhausted her as though she had just run a marathon.

The fear on her face pierced his chest.

He had the impression that none of the words he spoke, almost whispered in an attempt to calm her, were having any effect.

"I... I can't move," she stammered as one of the first things she said. Her eyes intensely focused on his face, searching for safety in it, and he feared he wouldn't be able to provide it for her.

"It's just temporary," he reassured her gently, leaning over her bed and trying to smile, but it came out uncertain, he was too worried about her condition. "The doctors say so, and that's the truth. Your body is just very weak right now."

"Will... will it be like this forever?"

"No, no, it will pass. I promise, it will pass," he nodded fervently. She hesitated and took a breath, as though discovering an entirely new action. But as soon as she did, out of fear, it became fast and irregular. He was terrified that his touch might cause her pain, but he didn't know what else he could do to help her. Gently, as gently as he could, he placed his hand on her cheek, barely grazing it with his thumb. "You'll feel better soon. Really, it won’t be long now. For now... just don’t overexert yourself, please, breathe."

At first, she flinched. He wanted to withdraw his hand as quickly as possible, but then he felt her press her face against it, almost nuzzling into it. A shy tear danced in one of her eyes, barely noticeable.

"It’s good to see you," she said after a brief silence, a soft sigh escaping her lips—almost like a laugh, though it didn’t quite make it. Her breath was still shallow and uneven, but with each passing moment, it seemed to steady as he held her close.

And in that moment, seeing her like that, feeling her presence so close, a smile spread across his face—a smile so genuine, so long-awaited—and with it came the tears he’d been holding back for what felt like forever.

"I feel the same," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "You have no idea how much."

*

The orthopedic collar pissed you off like nothing else.

It wasn’t even the discomfort that bothered you, it was just... the collar was such a painful reminder of your condition, a testament to what you had been through. And you were supposed to wear it for another six to eight weeks.

Two weeks after waking from the coma, preparations for leaving the hospital were beginning. The risk of brain swelling had subsided, the injuries were healing, and the concussion still made its presence known, but the pain was no longer as intense. You could even have a normal conversation, which you seized almost immediately, striking up a chat with the teenage girl in the bed next to you, her sad expression tugging at your heart.

Few people visited you; you preferred that the two most important ones could spend as much time with you as possible, rather than inviting coworkers or acquaintances you hadn’t spoken to in months. The two most important people.

Spencer had been with you since the moment you woke up, and as the doctor confessed to you with a small smile, he had also stayed by your side while you were in a coma. You were in shock. Not because he had done it—it made perfect sense, given his caring nature. The shock came from the simple fact that one person could care so deeply about another, about you.

It didn’t take long for you to realize that the moments when he visited you became your favorite part of the entire day. And not just because they revolved around checking your condition, tests, and the first, incredibly light rehabilitation exercises. You simply found yourself waiting for the moment he would appear in that doorway again, holding his coat in hand, smiling.

"Hello, handsome stranger," you greeted him one day, the first day you were starting to feel better.

 Spencer stopped at the sound of that term, tilting his head with an even wider smile.

 "How else did I used to call you?" you mused aloud. "Ah, I used to call you Mr. Mysterious. But I suppose that's no longer fitting, you smile too much to seem mysterious."

 "Because I have a reason," he replied, stopping beside your bed and glancing at the flowers placed there, the ones that had greeted you when you woke up that day. "But in that case, 'Handsome stranger' doesn’t fit either, since you know me now."

"But you are handsome. Half of it fits, so I have the right to call you that. Who... who sent me these flowers?"

"Better question would be, who didn’t send you those?" he muttered, referring to their large number. You could only admire them—the beautiful, colorful arrangements—but you hadn’t had the chance to read the notes and messages attached. Spencer glanced at one of them, his smile fading, though not in a bad way... somehow, the expression that appeared on his face was even more pleasing than his smile. "This... this one’s from my team."

You were simply speechless.

 "They... they even know I exist?"

 "Of course they do, how could they not?" Spencer paused for a moment, looking at you thoughtfully. "They... they were with me the whole time you were in a coma. They helped me keep my head together."

 "Don’t exaggerate," you tried to dispel the sudden serious mood. You didn’t want to delude yourself into thinking he had been that worried about you during that time. 

 "It’s not an exaggeration," he replied briefly and seriously, his face almost motionless.

For a moment, you fell silent, your hands resting on the blanket in front of you.

 "Sorry, Spencer. I just realized I’ve never thanked you for this..."

"What?" he asked, surprised, his brows furrowing. "This isn’t something you have to thank me for..."

"But I feel like I have to. This... this isn’t some small, silly favor. You really did so much for me... I still don’t fully understand why..."

 "You don’t understand why?"

"Yeah," you sighed uncertainly, not sure how to put it into words. "Don’t get me wrong... I’m so grateful to you, it’s just... look at it this way. We didn’t know each other that long, we saw each other rarely. We slept together once. It’s not like you were…obligated to help me."

"I didn’t have to be obligated to do it," he said after a moment of hesitation, circling your bed and sitting on the edge, just barely touching it. "And I didn’t have to know you for years. I just wanted to do it because of how much I cared about you. And if that explanation doesn’t convince you... then..." He swallowed hard. "Remember, you were there for me during one of the worst moments of my life."

“It’s not the same...”

 “Oh, but it is. For me, it is. But I don’t want you to think that I was there for you because I felt like I owed you something. Or that I had to... I don’t know... repay you in some way. That’s not it at all.”

You didn’t answer, something tight gripped your throat. You just tilted your head, overwhelmed with emotion, speechless. The only thing you truly wanted to do was stretch out your arms and drape them around his neck, resting your chin on his shoulder. Spencer sighed, surprised and tense. It wasn’t until a brief moment passed that his hands gently touched your back.

“How much longer are you going to act like I’m made of glass?” you asked.

You knew his caution was justified, but Jesus. You just really wanted to hug him properly.

“Probably forever,” he replied, to which you rolled your eyes.

He was the one to break the hug, but in compensation, he quickly kissed the top of your head. You leaned back against the bed, feeling a pleasant sensation in your stomach. Spencer returned to the flowers to tell you who had sent them all.

“So these are from my team,” he picked up the lost thread, pointing to the arrangement of white and pink carnations. He chuckled. “And I’m pretty sure Penelope picked them out, not just because her name is listed first. White represents perseverance and strength. Pink stands for admiration and respect.”

“That’s really thoughtful. And beautiful. I’ll have to thank them. And these tulips?”

Spencer took the note attached to the mentioned flowers between his fingers.

“From... Jerry.”

“What? My husband sent me flowers?”

 “What?” He jerked his head up in surprise.

You laughed so hard at the look on his face that it made you wince in your ribs.

 “I’m fucking kidding, you fool,” you replied, clutching your side with a groan. “Jerry is the librarian. You should know him. He once asked me what flowers he should buy for his wife, and I suggested yellow tulips. By the way, it's so nice of him”.

You said it affectionately, but it sounded incredibly weak. Along with the pain in your ribs, a headache joined in, and suddenly all the energy you'd had earlier evaporated.

“What's happening? Should I call a doctor?”

“No,” you shook your head in refusal. “I just need to lie down for a moment. Come here.”

Spencer followed your request and sat beside your bed, his body a little stiff, as if in guilt.

"I'm sorry I made you laugh."

"That's probably the strangest thing you could apologize for," you muttered, lying down in the position that was best for your neck, one you almost hated as much as the orthopedic collar. "Well, I guess I could come up with something stranger. Sorry I left that million dollars in your nightstand. It won't happen again."

"I'm not sure if this kind of chatter is particularly good for your condition."

"It helps me mentally, and that's what matters most. Besides, stop complaining."

"How could I possibly dare?"

He fell silent, simply watching you with quiet concern. You closed your eyes for a moment, unsure if you might accidentally drift off. After spending a week in a coma, your sleep routine had become completely erratic. You slept through the nights, mostly because there was little else to do, and you didn’t want to disturb the other patients in the ward. During the day, Spencer would visit, and you wanted to be as rested as possible when he was around.

When he wasn’t there, you sometimes napped during the day as well. According to the doctors, it was one of the best things you could do for your recovery—sleep and rest as much as your body needed.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked.

You hesitated for a long moment, because yes, something was weighing heavily on your mind. Had he guessed, or had he read it on your face?

“It’s just…” you began with a sigh. “You know Jude barely visits me? I mean, she shows up every day, but… she’s so tense and distant when she’s here. She doesn’t say much, and she won’t look me in the eyes.”

"She’s blaming herself," Spencer said softly.

“God, that’s so stupid,” you muttered.

You had a strange relationship with the accident. You thought about it as little as possible, keeping it at arm’s length. You knew Richard had been arrested, but you didn’t want to know the details of his sentencing. In no way did you see any of it as Jude’s fault, and it hurt you deeply to think that she did.

You spent a quiet moment together before Spencer leaned over you again, intending to kiss your forehead.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to go now,” he said, to which you nodded in understanding.

But then you shifted your head, pulling back just enough to stop him from brushing his lips against your forehead. He looked at you, puzzled, since you’d never minded it before.

This time, though, you wanted him to kiss you on the lips.

He kissed you slowly. You had almost forgotten how he tasted.

After that, you didn’t bother opening your eyes again. You let yourself imagine that he wasn’t leaving at all, and with that comforting thought, you drifted off to sleep.

*

Spencer had felt strange since the morning.

 Energized and excited. In the absolute best possible way.

That day, he could finally take her home. Well, to his apartment. She needed someone to take care of her, and he felt honored to be that person.

The day before, he had made a very important, yet difficult decision. He invited JJ over and confessed everything to her—about the past few weeks and his struggles with relapsing into addiction. He needed to rid himself of that burden. Besides, he had promised himself that as long as she was living with him, not even the smallest dose of Dilaudid would find its way inside. Never again.

In his worst moments, he imagined that his friend would react with disgust—pure, painful disgust—and push him away. Instead, her eyes filled with something strange the moment he began to speak about how he had felt after Emily's death. Over and over, she whispered apologies, as though she were the one responsible for it.

He still missed Emily, of course, and he knew he would always miss her. That was just the way of things—people left, and it was up to you to decide whether you would remember them with heartbreaking despair or with a wistful sigh. In fact, these were merely two ends of the same spectrum, and it was very easy to get stuck at the beginning, unable to move forward.

She was surprisingly quiet in the car and seemed depressed. Actually, it was hard not to blame her. She had spent a long time in the hospital, gotten used to that routine, and the change made her feel lost. Sitting in the passenger seat, she kept her gaze fixed ahead, but not on the road. She couldn’t see where they were headed, which made it difficult for Spencer to tell her something… at least important.

 When they stopped, she furrowed her brow in surprise.

 “Why are we here?”

They were parked under his apartment, and she had been under the impression they were heading to her place.

 “Sorry, I should’ve told you earlier, I really apologize,” Spencer blurted out in one breath, chaotically. “I absolutely realize that this is like putting you in a situation you didn’t expect, but… but when you were in the hospital, Jude found herself a new roommate. She didn’t really know how to tell you, but she had to do it because she couldn’t afford the rent on her own.”

For a long moment, she stared at him in silence, her face a mixture of shock, followed by understanding. She took a deep breath.

 “Okay,” she muttered. “I understand her, I just… I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me this herself.”

Their relationship still remained deeply complicated, put to the test by guilt. Spencer couldn’t say much about it. It was something between the two of them, and he hardly knew Jude at all.

 “I’m also sorry for asking you this so late,” he continued after a moment. “But… you can’t live alone, you know that. Someone… someone needs to be with you over the next few weeks and… I’m willing to be that person.”

Her lips remained slightly parted for a moment.

“You want… no, wait, you want me to move in with you?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, because before he could answer, she started shaking her head. “Spencer, I can’t. I can’t be that burden for you.”

“A burden? You’re not…”

“But I will be. In the next few weeks, I definitely will be.”

He took his hands off the steering wheel, placing them loosely on his knees.

“Can you… can you look at me for a moment?” he asked.

It took a moment before she hesitantly met his gaze. Her eyes were filled with embarrassed tears, tears full of unjust shame. Seeing this, pain spread through his chest.

“If the accident hadn’t happened, would you want to live with me?”

 Her lips remained pressed together, and she sighed.

 “It’s a big decision. Aside from the fact that if it weren’t for the accident, I wouldn’t even have to consider this option…”

“I just want to know if you would want to. Don’t think of it as an option, just as… a completely normal, life decision. Do you think you’d be able to handle having me around every day?”

She couldn’t help it, and her lips curled into a slight smile.

“We could try,” she finally replied.

Spencer straightened his arms.

“In that case, let’s go inside.”

 “No, wait, it’s not that simple! My opinion shouldn’t matter; it’s you who needs to think about whether you want this…”

 “I do.”

She snorted, resigned, not knowing what else to say.

“I can’t even tie my own shoes,” she tried one last time.

“I’ll gladly do it for you. What’s more, I know all kinds of knots. Simple, sailor’s, Chinese…”

“Spencer Reid, you’re impossible.”

For the rest of the day, she tried every possible way to talk him out of his decision. But when she finally accepted it, she struggled to accept his help with tasks she couldn’t do on her own.

 It wasn’t until later that he realized how much she had been pretending in the hospital. He had only seen her for a fraction of her day, and she seemed so positive then. But this temporary disability had really taken a toll on her mentally. He could repeat and assure her, completely sincerely, that she wasn’t a burden to him, but deep down, she still believed otherwise.

So, when two days later, she timidly appeared in the bedroom doorway with the question of whether he could help her wash her hair, Spencer felt like he had won the lottery.

“Sure,” he agreed, probably a bit too enthusiastically, jumping to his feet so quickly that he almost tripped.

She pretended not to notice.

In the bathroom, he slowly helped her pull the shirt over her head, careful not to catch it on the collar still around her neck or accidentally cause her any pain. 

“Be careful not to tilt your head too much, okay?” he asked, wetting her hair with the showerhead. She closed her eyes when a few drops of water splashed onto them. “Sorry!”

“For god's sake, Spencer, you're doing it more carefully than I would have done myself.”

It was true; he was acting as if he were performing some task at work that required absolute precision. He shrugged, massaging the strawberry shampoo into her hair. Foam quickly appeared, smelling sweet.

Suddenly, her hands tightened around the front of his shirt.

“Sorry,” she whispered, loosening her grip. “I got a little dizzy.”

Spencer immediately pressed his hands, still covered in shampoo, to her waist, afraid she might fall. He stared at her face for a long moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

And just then, her body suddenly went limp, falling forward.

Terrified, he let out a strangled cry.

“Hold on, please, don’t fall!” he kept repeating, doing everything he could to keep her upright.

Her hands hung limply on his shoulders, the foam and water soaking into his shirt, but he didn’t care at all.

“I’m right here, hold on to me as much as you can. C-c-can you hear me at all?”

He wondered whether it would be better to stand her up or lay her down while he could get to the phone and call an ambulance, when suddenly her weak touch grew stronger, and she let out a soft groan.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologizing. I’m still holding you, can you hear me?”

His heart was pounding incredibly fast as she gently pulled her head away from his chest. He, of course, didn’t let her stand on her own, constantly supporting her body, protecting her from a fall that could be disastrous.

Together, they left the shower cabin, her hair still covered in foam.

“Are you aware that this is how it’s going to look now?” she asked seriously.

Completely unfazed, he wiped the foam from her forehead, which was dangerously close to her eyes.

“I’d rather have you lose consciousness in my bathroom, right next to me, than risk… I don’t know, cracking your head open.”

For a moment, she was silent, the color beginning to return to her pale face, her gaze becoming more alert. He had a strange feeling that she was about to start crying, and since he really didn’t want that, he pulled her close again, in his usual protective gesture. Everything around them smelled of strawberries.

“Do you really have to be this good?”

Spencer snorted.

“I’m afraid it’s just my curse.”

*

“Are these people really arguing about whether a cucumber is a fruit or a vegetable?”

Sitting on the couch, you jumped when a voice spoke right behind you. At the last second, you caught your laptop before it slipped off your lap. You had been reading some absurd discussion on an online forum you stumbled upon completely by accident. And yes, these users were indeed arguing about whether a cucumber is a fruit or a vegetable.

“Damn it, Spencer!” you shouted, putting your hand over your heart, which was pounding in an agitated rhythm. You looked at your boyfriend with a scowl. “You almost gave me a heart attack. How is it possible I didn’t hear you come in?”

He shrugged. Leaning his elbows on the back of the couch, the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt revealed the skin of his forearms. In that position, he had a perfect view of the screen on your laptop. He had just returned from work, a rainy July evening, his hair slightly damp.

“I wasn’t sneaking around. You must’ve just been lost in thought. Want to tell me what’s occupying that beautiful mind of yours?” He leaned in to place a kiss on your temple.

“Beautiful mind, huh?” you repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Just a few days ago, you told me that if a 19th-century priest heard even one thought from my head, he’d go into anaphylactic shock. Whatever that was supposed to mean.”

"In a big simplification, what I meant is that even though I love you, sometimes your way of thinking scares me."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"By the way, I bought land for Alexander."

Alexander was your new flycatcher, which had grown so much that it completely prevented the other flowers on the windowsill from growing. Due to its conqueror tendencies, you decided to name it after one of them.

"Do you want to repot it into a new pot now...?"

"No. Now you need to come to me."

You set the laptop aside and waited for him to take a seat on the couch. Before fully snuggling into him, you untied and removed the tie from his neck, then unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, just the way you liked.

You sighed almost instantly; his body was more comfortable than a pillow. Warm, with your favorite scent. You rested your head on his chest as his fingers gently combed through your hair.

In the first few weeks after you were discharged from the hospital, you couldn’t even sleep in the same bed. There was a risk that, in his sleep, he might accidentally bump into your neck and cause damage. Spencer enforced that rule strictly, as he did with every precaution related to your health.

Six months had passed since the accident, and for the past four months, you hadn’t worn a neck brace or needed help with daily tasks. But that didn’t change the fact that, sometimes, when you showered together, he would wash your hair just like he used to. Anyway, you were still attending rehabilitation and would need to for a long time, but despite that, you felt like you had fully returned to normal life.

You lifted yourself slightly to look at his face.

"I was walking to the bar today," you began.

You’d been considering going back to work for a while now, and the doctors had assured you there was no reason you couldn’t. You wanted something to occupy your hands and craved the sense of purpose that came with a task. You’d mentioned it to Spencer long ago, so he didn’t seem surprised when you brought it up.

"And? Will they take you back?"

"No. I mean, it’s not that they don’t want to, I just didn’t get there. That’s why I said I was walking and not that I went to a bar. Are you following?"

"I'm trying."

"So, listen to this. I took the subway and got off at that station near the room I used to rent."

The landlord had asked for the keys back shortly after your accident. Your arrangement had been that, in exchange for using the space, you cleaned it daily. Of course, you hadn’t been able to keep up with that anymore.

"...And I don't know, I was overwhelmed by this strange feeling, like I wanted to go back to it. Helping people."

"You help people all the time," Spencer reminded you. "All our neighbors come to you to vent about everything happening in their lives."

"That's true, but I mean, you know, professional help," you said, taking a deeper breath. You couldn't decide whether you were more excited or nervous about the decision. "I've been thinking about going back to uni, Spencer."

He straightened up, almost causing you to slide off his chest. Filled with tension, you watched his reaction closely. You’d spent the entire day wondering what he might say. Would he share your enthusiasm and support your plans, or would he try to talk you out of it, reasoning that you’d dropped out of school once and might not manage it again?

These thoughts were incredibly silly. Spencer—knowledge-obsessed, ever-curious Spencer—would never say something like that.

Instead, he pulled you into a tight embrace, whispering how incredible the idea was. You melted into it completely, feeling more elated than ever and unable to stop thinking about the crazy chain of cause and effect that had led to this specific moment, this particular relationship, and above all, this exact happiness. 

do you accept this overly sweet ending as my apology? :> tagging: @nightfullofparadox @lillaberry @fortheloveofgubler @opheliahotchner @cowboy1ikereid @penelopegarciaismygf

sorry if i forgot about someone!

[halemerry]

So there’s understandably a lot out there examining the painful/emotional parts of this season, but I just wanted to take a second to acknowledge something really important that is a bit... maybe not lighter in tone but something worth celebrating.

Because like, even if he seems a bit directionless and frustrated, Crowley actually is pretty happy this season?

He’s making progress. He’s letting himself have things he wouldn’t have ever before - even if it's not exactly the thing he wants the most. He's letting himself be himself. He's not censoring instincts and impulses to nearly the same degree and it's actually pretty remarkable.

Like, okay, yes, Crowley is pretty lost now that he exists outside the toxic structure he has been operating under for millenia. And, yes his safety net with Aziraphale and the structure they operate in has also crumbled a bit because so much of that structure was built around what they were and weren’t allowed to safely do within the toxic structure. But, I actually do think this season does a lot to show that even if this struggle is very real and has consequences that aren’t all objectively good, freeing himself from that structure is a net good.

He smiles more. He laughs more. He sprawls more. He seems generally more physically relaxed and comfortable trusting his instincts without having to check everything he’s doing or saying against Hell. And this state of existence isn’t dependent on Aziraphale being present either. It’s just him being him and becoming comfortable with what that means.

And it wasn't a snap your fingers bam you're better situation either. It takes work and time to break old instincts. I mean, years have passed and we’re still struggling to let anyone say that we are nice. But significantly his instinct isn’t to snarl or physically lash out. It’s to roll his eyes or half heartedly object or maybe throw in a light growl for old times sake. And, sometimes, the instinct is to grin like a self satisfied loon as you contradict the nice human who implied you were nice.

Crowley is now in a place where his impulses to be kind are things he’s allowed to give into now and, even if he’s doing so under a veneer of snark and sneer, he is letting himself do that. He’s making sure the people around him are caring for ducks properly. He’s admitting he was worried about Aziraphale and cooing at his own car. He’s apologizing for accidentally locking people into coffee shops and openly helping them get out without even stopping to think about how maybe doing so might clue them in that he’s not quite what he seems. He's helping Shax learn her way around earth, even when she’s actively working against him and Aziraphale.

Even when interacting with Jim, who brings out the most of Crowley’s negative reactions and masks, his instincts are just as often to be gentle as they are to be angry. So long as Jim isn’t actively setting off alarm bells in Crowley’s head Crowley is so patient with him. He explains gravity unprompted and proceeds to include Jim in on his planning to get Nina and Maggie together. After his initial explosion at Jim’s presence the next two are immediately followed up by him getting upset and then backing off of Jim. He starts to threaten Jim when he’s reminded Aziraphale is in danger and then nearly immediately backs off of that, acknowledging there’s no point in it. And then, of course, after he nearly talks Jim into jumping out a window and pressures him into extracting more information from his brain he feels guilty enough to then offer Jim an act of care and service. It's such a stark difference from the guy we see even this season needing to put a layer between himself and anything good he does by either denying thanks outright or putting the blame on being under some influence.

And it’s startling how much we see him smile this season and how many different versions of that we get. From the genuine delight on his face when he thinks Operation Lovebird is working to the pleased little smirk he gives Aziraphale through the window when he watches him bring order to the arguing angels and demons in his shop, to the little smile of familiarity when he wonders what happened to Mr Dalrymple - Crowley smiles a lot compared to the first season. And it doesn't matter where he is either. He has a delightful time in Heaven, snickering and grinning to himself nearly the entire time he's prancing around there. And that’s not even getting into his dorky little snort laugh that pops up a few times throughout the season.

And I just. It’s so nice that this show doesn’t want to deny that what Aziraphale and Crowley are doing is hard but also that it doesn’t want to wallow in that struggle either. It never wants to frame that what they earned at the end of season 1 has doomed them but it isn't afraid to show the speed bumps that the system they were in is causing them on their way to happily ever after. They’re allowed to be happy. They're allowed to struggle with getting there. This is allowed to be a good thing for them, even if it sometimes takes work.

[pix-writes]

outside sex w/ Ford 🫣

Ford & outside sex, tried to make it as gender neutral as possible for this one, hope you enjoy!

(18+ MDNI under cut!) NSFW with lots of fluff on the side 😉

I feel like Ford would actually be really into having sex outside, though I don't think he's the kind of person into voyeurism at all! He wouldn't like to have anyone else looking at you in that way and he certainly wouldn't want to be at high risk of getting caught - it's a turn off!

But he does love nature, he loves being in the woods around the falls and knows lots of beautiful and quiet, largely secluded spots as well as all the magical and dangerous sections of the area to avoid. He would like to take you to such pretty locations as a date activity. He's a romantic deep down 🥰 having a picnic by a smaller lake that was formed off of the bigger lake within gravity falls, not a well known spot, watching as the day grows towards sunset? Hearing people far off on the main lake packing up after a full day of activities, tourism and fishing? Sharing some wine and dessert together should you be so inclined? Wonderful! The perfect place to have both a view and not be interrupted.

It starts off as just cuddling and making out on the grass, as the date progresses, but the intimacy builds to more than that, getting a little heated. Something about it sparks something in Ford, he imagines taking you out to more private places, just you and him alone in tranquil nature, where you won't be seen or have to worry about volume (at least maybe, not as much as when you're in the shack). Maybe you could even go camping.

Ford takes you hiking over the falls and ends up getting himself hot and bothered by the vision of you in front of him 😅 when you're walking in front of him, he gets the best view of your ass 😉

And when you need to break for a few minutes, dewy with sweat and out of breath from exertion, his mind is going to other activities in which he's seen you like that.

When the path becomes steep and treacherous he feels a certain sense of fulfilment/pride (?) that you need his help to traverse it, giving you a hand to pull you up or catch you, that you put your trust in him and his reassurances that you'll be fine and you can cross without falling, is something that helps him to feel useful and more secure. I guess it also feeds a certain masculine role (trope?) in him too (mostly in a pure way rather than a negative/toxic way), in being useful and capable to you in such a physical way. In fact he might even be a bit handsy when he helps you, if he's feeling playful enough or if the trip is tiring you out to try and lift your spirits:

Ford places a hand over your ass as you stumble when he helps you up a high step, drawing you into pressing up against him. "Careful, my dear." 😏

"Stanford Pines, you are a tease!" 😑

"I don't know what you're talking about." 🫠

There's a limit to Ford's patience and you can figure it out, most likely, in this scenario! If he can get you somewhere he considers safe and far away enough from any others who could possibly stumble across you, he'll take you as soon as possible.

Or, I kind of imagine a scenario where you're in the woods adventuring, helping Ford with his research of the anomalies, when things inevitably go wrong and you end up in some moderate dangers in fighting and escaping the latest monster of the week, when you end up coming to a stop to catch your breath, the danger now behind you - the tension is palpable!

Both of your heightened states of emotion mean that one of you runs hands over the other looking to see if they're hurt, almost getting into an argument over the details of how things went wrong or how you managed to come so close to getting hurt, maybe Ford ends up frustrated at you not listening to his instruction and taking a risk, either way that underlying tension snaps. There's tears in his eyes -

"You're so stubborn! How could you put yourself in that position?!"

"I saved you from being hurt! I thought I could've lost you back there!"

You end up being pressed up against a tree as Ford roughly kisses you, feeling under your clothes, squeezing and pinching at your sensitive areas as you moan into his mouth. You know what both of your actions are saying; you care about each other, you felt like you might not have gotten out of this alive, but here you both are.

You don't mind being rough in fact, you want it, you want to feel each other, you want to feel alive. You don't care if you get scratched up by the uncomfortable surfaces, and you are almost certainly going to be scratched up.

No matter who is the instigator here, Ford ends up the one to flip you around and push you up against the tree so he can take you from behind. Neither of you even bothered to undress, clothes pushed up or aside or pulled down just enough to access what you wanted.

And god forbid any forest gnome stumbles across you now, as Ford would probably turn them into ashes if they interrupted you! 🤭😳

Don't worry though, more TLC is applied after, once you manage to get back home, Ford being more gentle and tending to any cuts and bruises.

[fridgrave2-0]

I'm tired of pretending that I'm okay with ford being an absolute asshole towards fiddleford and basically abusing him.

first of all, yes, it's not ford's fault that he was manipulated (doubtful tbh) and abused by bill, but that doesn't give him the right to be a jerk who closes his eyes on his friend's deepest traumas. the traumas fiddleford got only because stanford completely ignored his warning and got fidds involved into bunch of shit. like his monster hunting which wasn't even the reason fiddleford went to gravity falls in the first place. he was there to help ford build the portal, not to be a part of ford's anomaly quest. and when fiddleford spoke out against it he was ignored because ford doesn't give a shit about anyone else but himself or his muse. fiddleford got traumatized physically and mentally so deeply that in the need to be able to sleep at night peacefully he completely destroyed his mind to the state that even bill was scared to be in there. and what stanford did? he (the one who couldn't care less about fidds warning him about gremoblin) critiqued fiddleford for using the memory gun and didn't even bother to apologize or say that he's sorry in the journal. god, what am I saying, he didn't even took fiddleford to the hospital after fiddleford feel from the sky through the roof of a fucking barn with a dozen of poisonous quills in his body AND A BROKEN ARM. ford described what happened to fidds in the journal, said he "took him home for a treatment" and the next two paragraphs on the other page is "good news the hyperdrive works" LIKE IS THAT THE ONLY THING YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT THE HELL??? "despite our fortune, I have become worried about my assistant... I myself have survived many monster attacks without trauma, but perhaps F is more sensitive that I realized". no shit sherlock, who would've imagine that seeing your worst nightmares and being poisoned can leave a mark on your mental state. sure it's just fiddleford, he's just overreacting because he's "sensitive"))) /src

ford was ignoring fiddleford's concerns all the fucking time that mcgucket was there with him, he took a superstitious and religious guy with anxiety into the forest with real ass monsters who's no one but ford is used to see. fiddleford was warning stanford about shifty and got kidnapped with his identity stolen by the shapeshifter because ford didn't listen. well, at least this time stanford had bothered to apologize for another traumatic event- ah no, next thing ford said is that when the portal is finished all the traumas fiddleford had been through were "worth it". ford just finds ways to make everything worse

we all know that fiddleford has an addictive personality and that the memory gun is the biggest example of that. what we don't talk enough about is that ford at some point decided that sleeping is for losers, but didn't stop at himself and made fiddleford drink 13 fucking cups of coffee, not allowing him to sleep, what in the future made fiddleford a caffeine addict. ford is not only an overworking idiot who gladly damages his own health, no! he wants fiddleford to be the same and quote "gets frustrated" when fiddleford cares not only about his own, but their both basic needs. fiddleford had to work on the portal, get in the trouble with monsters because of ford, but also babysit this manchild to prevent him collapsing from exhaustion (which is more impossible than building a giant portal into the multiverse)

and here we are, the portal testing. once again (and as always) fiddleford did warned ford about everything. fiddleford was working without breaks for days to make sure if the portal will work, and when he found the flaws, he wrote a whole fucking thesis paper, putting all ford's research into a solid work (not taking even smallest credit even tho he was the one to build the portal. when fiddleford had his own theory in the university, ford helped him to only proof that fidds wasn't going crazy by checking the calculations and ford bothered to take the credit for the whole theory, but fiddleford who was a part and a victim of this monumental theory of weirdness didn't took it because he unlike ford doesn't care only about fame). but what did stanford do? he assumed that fiddleford wanted to steal his fucking fame and backstab him. ford didn't even bother to look at something fiddleford was making for three days without resting to make sure that portal won't hurt anyone in the town and that ford won't end up with empty hand if the portal was indeed a lost cause. stanford coldly dismissed fiddleford like they weren't friends, said that he doesn't really waiting fiddleford for the test of the device that fiddleford did built, and even knowing that the portal was dangerous fiddleford chose to come for the test

and then fiddleford got in the portal and it was the biggest traumatic event for him. it was the breaking point for him from which he couldn't stop using the memory gun. it damaged him so much, that he turned from that bright 30-y.o. man into the familiar to us old man mcgucket in the span of two years. his life was ruined for another 30 years, a half of his life he was a mad lonely guy who lived in the junkyard. the man who could've become someone like steve jobs but much better if only he didn't go to help stanford. his family could've been full, tate could have his father. the incident with the portal was the moment of no return for fiddleford, and what did stanford do?

when fiddleford got sucked in the portal, he thought only about the success of his work, that for fidds it was "a remarkable opportunity to confirm or deny the theory" (which he already did with his pre-test research). he didn't think that it was dangerous on the other side, that the portal wouldn't just disintegrate fidds on atoms. and when stanford saw him speaking in a non-human way, shaking and twitching in shock like fiddleford did after the gremoblin incident, ford decided it was nothing. when fiddleford warned him about the apocalypse because he was in the portal and saw it with his own eyes, ford, as always, didn't listen. he didn't just not care about fidds' condition — he diminished everything fiddleford was feeling and everything he witnessed only because it didn't fit in ford's believes which were based just on bill's words (and for stanford it's not something new to belittle things related to fiddleford. he wasn't taking fidds' dream of creating a portable computer seriously, believing that his weirdness theory was much more important)

and after this, stanford insults fiddleford and his family in the journal. he says that he doesn't regret their partnership (it's not really a partnership if stanford didn't count fiddleford as an equal) and friendship breaking up. "to think I considered him a friend!" I doubt he ever did. stanford doesn't know shit about being a good friend (or even a decent person) to someone who sacrificed everything for him. who did put his life aside to be with ford, who cared enough to stay despite stanford again and again putting him in danger, constantly waving him away and feeling no remorse for that. fiddleford was breaking himself for this guy, he canonically was going through "I am nobody to ford if I don't build stuff for him" (and in the end this is exactly what happened). fiddleford didn't tell ford most of his fears and concerns because he didn't want to bother him. fidds was constantly scared and kept in inside because he wanted to be a "better partner". "if I have an anxiety, I will pop anxiety pills", "I'm gonna get through this". and then he didn't

fiddleford was abused by stanford. he was to stanford that ford was to bill, in some ways even worse. it's fucking wild that fiddleford did forgive ford after 30 years of a neverending madness nightmare with his mind being destroyed so much as like it was the earth in the times of the dinosaurs after being hit by the meteorite. fiddleford had lost literally everything, he wasn't even himself for a half of his life and still fidds found the strength to forgive someone who is responsible for it and who used him with regular emotional neglect. and you know what? fuck this. ford would never forgive bill and fiddleford had every right to stay mad at stanford. ford needed to be stuck in the portal to get his head out of the ass and by that time there were only crumbs of someone who fiddleford once was

fiddauthor and billford both are about abuse and toxic relationships. it's up to you what you like to ship, but we need to acknowledge the fact that fiddauthor isn't some fluffy healthy thing where both are happy. fiddleford was never happy and stanford didn't care about fiddleford and his feelings. they made each other worse and ford ruined fidds' life. THIS is the real fiddauthor

[missriyochuchi]

The Torchbearer and the Flagbearer

Summary: The Torchbearer and the Flagbearer meet in the Jardin des Tuileries after the Opening Ceremony and commiserate about the Olympic Games.

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: Established relationship. Mentions of death.

Notes: I imagined these two like otherworldly beings blessing the games, what with the Olympics being invented by ancient Greeks as a partly religious event. As such, I would have preferred to keep them gender neutral, but because I’m writing this in a pinch and want to be able to distinguish between them without constantly using their names, I opted for gendered pronouns. But nothing about their physical descriptions are particularly gendered; I’m just leaning on the old linguistic quirk lol Also, how tf is there no video of the Flagbearer!? I wanted to gif her/their entrance but couldn’t find a damn thing! She/They deserves more love!

Read on AO3 - Part 2 - Part 3

Darkness cloaks the Jardin des Tuileries. Even the cauldron floating above its center offers little illumination on the ground. Shadows play along the perimeter, tourists passing in the midnight hour, their idle conversations lost to the humid air. The soft patter of rain echoes across the masonry scattered throughout the empty park. Only the occasional creak of metallic plates and restless hoofbeats betray the garden’s solitary visitors.

The Flagbearer looks up at the orange orb in the sky. She marvels at the city’s ingenuity. Decades of oil and gas have finally given way to an electric fire. Only with such technological advancements could engineers even dream of safely flying the eternal flame above the City of Lights. If only the future was as assuredly bright, the Flagbearer thinks. Her gaze drifts back down to the darkness below, the surrounding chill creeping back into her senses. Her horse stirs beneath her and jostles her mind back to the present.

“Easy, Zeus,” she murmurs as she presses her legs to the animal’s sides in an attempt to soothe both their anxieties. “Patience.”

No Olympic Games are ever truly free of political problems, an inevitability of any gathering between disparate peoples, but they weigh heavier on the Flagbearer’s mind now more than ever. Her part in the Opening Ceremony is small but significant, and though she spends less time among the crowds than her eternal counterpart, she catches enough to gauge that tensions are higher than ever before. The darkness of the night seems to encroach and bleed into the darkness in her mind as she ponders human history and her role in it. Before her resolve could lurch under the gravity of her thoughts, the light crunch of gravel announces his arrival.

“You are late,” the Flagbearer intones harshly. She steers her steed to turn around and face the approaching footsteps.

Enough ambient light creeps across the park to distinguish the Torchbearer’s silhouette, catching on the gauzy pieces of his attire bobbing in the breeze. His stride is sure, his stature straight, betraying neither weariness nor arrogance. Only a few meters away, he shrugs and raises his palms out at his sides, teasing, “I did not have a ride.”

The Flagbearer is unmoved but in no mood to quarrel. “How are you, my love?” Her voice floats soft and light through the misty drizzle.

“Exhausted.” His shoulders slump fractionally, perceptible only to his eternal flame facing him. “And you?”

“Concerned.”

The Torchbearer reaches for the horse’s muzzle and runs a familiar hand along his nose. “I hope you are not as troubled as your rider, mon joli cheval.” Zeus bows his long head and huffs in response. His palm runs along the animal’s left flank, lifting once he reaches the Flagbearer’s side. He extends both hands to her gloved ones and helps her to the ground.

“What ails my sweet?” He pinches her chin.

She hums and takes one of his hands in both of hers, squeezing hard enough to convey her worry. “In all our years shepherding these games, did you ever know the atmosphere to be this—”

“I know. The world is—”

“Restless.”

“Yes, and—”

“Not at peace.”

“Never has been, my love.”

“I do not remember it ever being this—”

“Your worries are not unfounded, cherie, but you must redirect your attention elsewhere.”

They circle the base beneath the cauldron, hand in hand. Zeus follows close behind, his reins tied to the saddle. While the nightlife bustles beyond the park’s pocket of silence, the few security guards on duty watch the hooded figures from a distance.

Event organizers had explicitly and numerously instructed personnel not to approach or engage with the Torchbearer and Flagbearer. They were both host and blessing to the festivities, and decades of tradition dictated that a respectful, neutral distance be maintained between the host nation and the two Olympic guardians so that there would be no suspicion of impropriety or favoritism during competition.

The Flagbearer recoils, incredulous. “How can you be so indifferent to the violence and rhetoric—”

“I am surprised that between the two of us, you, in your glittering armor, are the first to lose hope and declare defeat.”

“I have not!” She stops them in their orbit and shoves his hand back to his side.

The Torchbearer laughs. He crooks a finger under her chin and raises her gaze. She sighs and closes her eyes as the backs of his fingers graze her cheek. Her hands come up to open and press his palm to the side of her face, his pressure more than his warmth a soothing balm to her inner turmoil. Her voice is low and leaden when she continues.

“I merely wonder if the gods have not tasked us with an impossible mission.”

The Torchbearer falls silent as he contemplates the Flagbearer’s concerns. She did not interact with humans as much as he did, a natural consequence of their separate roles. While the Olympic torch exchanged hands with every kind of man and woman, the Olympic flag exchanged hands with a significantly select few. As a result, the Flagbearer’s opinion of humanity often leaned towards the optimistic while the Torchbearer’s leaned towards the pessimistic. He had come to know, better than she, the complexities of human nature, their heavenly highs and their hellish lows. They spent decades arguing about the tenuous balance. Now, as he watches his partner’s shoulders sag with the weight of the world, he finds himself despondent that she seems poised to concede to his viewpoint and knows it, knows that she lost this one important battle. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides their walk away from the cauldron.

“Plus vite, Plus haute, Plus fort.” The Torchbearer rattles off the Olympic motto.

“Citius, Altius, Fortius, my dear. Latin may be dead, but it is still your mother tongue.”

“‘Ensemble.’ C’est la partie importante. And that is precisely what they are doing and continue to do.”

“But for how long? We do not have a future if they do not, and my darling, I do not see—”

“We cannot predict the future any more than humans can. It is none of our concern. The gods will take care of us.”

“The gods have abandoned us, just as the humans have abandoned them.” The Flagbearer catches the ice in her voice and does her best to warm her vitriol. “We do not exist outside these games, my love. And if these games end, if the world can find no purpose to these communal competitions—”

Silence. The specter of death looms large in their periphery. Every Closing Ceremony marks the end of their days on Earth, a return to a darkness beyond darkness. And every two years, they are reborn and reimagined back into existence to inspire and perform and protect the Olympic Games. Despite the constancy of this cyclical event, the eternal guardians find humans increasingly less hospitable to the ideals they represent. What is sportsmanship to a world where even the rules of war no longer hold?

“Steel your heart as this city has steeled your form.” The Torchbearer steps close enough for the edge of his hood to kiss hers. “The next host cities have been decided, their venues under construction. We still have a future. There is no reason to despair.”

“For now.”

“For now.” He sighs at her obstinacy, but knows not to push further or risk wasting precious moments on a fruitless fight. “In the meantime, the games have begun, and we do not have much time together.”

A smirk plays beneath the Flagbearer’s hood. She perks up at her partner’s motives. “Sixteen days is not enough to spend with you.” She steps closer and brings her forehead to his. She squeezes his biceps, and he rubs her elbows in return. They exchange breaths for a moment of eternity.

“Come.” The Torchbearer takes her hands and swings her in circles. Their laughs echo as they near the horse. “Much of the city has changed since we were last here, and you will not see them if you continue to sulk beneath the cauldron.”

The Flagbearer mounts Zeus and extends an arm to help the Torchbearer take a seat behind her. He presses his front to her back, unbothered by her damp cape. He slides his arms along either side of her waist and rests his hands atop hers on the horn of the saddle. The horse ambles forward towards the city streets.

Buoyed by the Torchbearer’s embrace, the Flagbearer regains a sliver of her hope and optimism. “The Italians will call on us next. Perhaps we will meet a changed world by then.”

“We always do. I wonder what forms they have planned for us.”

“I quite like this form on you, my dear. The cut of your jacket complements you well.”

“As does this armor on you, mon amour.” His hands find the edge of her cuirass and sneak nimble fingers to the suit underneath.

She giggles at the light pressure below her ribcage. “I will miss hearing you speak this city’s language.”

The Torchbearer tightens his hold on the Flagbearer, impressing his being into hers. “You worry about community and forget that we are in the City of Love.”

“Paris is not the world, my dear.” They sway in sync as Zeus carries them towards the edge of the garden.

“Perhaps, but the Olympic Village is, or at least, as close an approximation as the humans are capable of producing. If it is unity you seek, we will surely find a certain kind—”

“You said you were exhausted.” Amusement lightens the Flagbearer’s tone, her heavy mind now fizzy with thoughts of the Torchbearer’s amorous intentions.

“Never enough to deter me from you.” He presses his chin to her shoulder, his words vibrating down the expanse of her armor. “Would you waste the energy of the players’ liaisons?”

Her hood whips to the side as he squeezes the unarmored flesh of her upper thigh. Before she can answer, he takes the reins and brings Zeus to a gallop towards the Olympic Village.

“No more talk,” he heaves with urgency. “I need you before the sun rises and our duties begin again.”

Footnotes:

mon joli cheval - my pretty horse cherie - dear Plus vite, Plus haute, Plus fort (French) / Citius, Altius, Fortius (Latin) - Faster, Higher, Stronger ‘Ensemble.’ C’est la partie importante. (French) - ‘Together.’ That is the important part. mon amour - my love

“The 100% electric flame burns no fuel. The ring of fire uses 40 LED spotlights to illuminate the cloud created by 200 high-pressure misting nozzles.” (source)

According to the engineers who built the mechanical horse, its name is Zeus.

[morganski-19]

Chills Right to the Marrow Part 35

ao3 link| part 1 . . . part 32, part 33, part 34

“So, how’s living in the mansion?” Eddie asks. Stabbing at the Jello cup with a fork instead of trying to eat it.

“Don’t think it’s officially a mansion. It’s just a big house.”

Eddie looks at him skeptical. “Same thing.”

In all fairness, it hasn’t been all that bad. It’s been an adjustment, sure. Any move would do that. Especially one where he barely knew the roommate. But he’s been sleeping better than he has for weeks. Been taking better care of himself. Can do laundry without carting himself to the laundromat and shelling out a handful of quarters. There’s a kitchen where he can start cooking in again. A real couch to sit on and a table to eat at. He forgot how much he missed stuff like that.

“It’s fine,” he says. Really downplaying it.

Eddie nods, seeing through all of Wayne’s bullshit. His stubborn air to automatically dislike anything that he didn’t do or buy himself.

“And living with Steve?” Eddie asks with hesitation.  

Steve keeps to himself well. Gets up for work and leaves peacefully. Never making a big fuss, or really alerting Wayne that he’s there too much. He’s quiet. A little too quiet sometimes.

Sometimes Wayne will wake up and there’s coffee waiting for him in the kitchen. One time he walked in after a shift and Steve left him some food in the fridge. And there’s always a note on the kitchen island letting Wayne know where he is. So, there’s nothing to worry about.

“Also fine,” Wayne responds.

Eddie almost sighs a breath of relief. Like he was hoping Wayne would like Steve. Would get along with him without a fuss. Like he hasn’t been more than cordial with Steve ever since Eddie woke up. They’ve already gotten along better that Wayne would have guessed.

But there was another layer to this. Wayne can approve of Steve as a friend, he certainly seems capable of doing that. The more that Eddie is secretly wanting though, that he’s not so sure.

Steve’s a fine kid. Just one with a reputation. Heartbreaker of Hawkins High. The one that every girl wanted to be with. Who got with everyone he could. It could be an exaggeration. It could be a bunch of bullshit rumors. Wayne wouldn’t, or really want, to know. Steve’s personal life is his personal life. He’s not inclined to share it.

But if that personal life comes back around and hurts his boy. Well, Steve should know what would happen about that.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Eddie suddenly averts his eyes. Finally eating the now massacred Jello.

“Because I know you, and I’ve seen this look before. Didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.”

Eddie clicks his tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Because he does. But it wouldn’t hurt for him to be wrong sometimes.

“No, you don’t.” Eddie slams the Jello down on his tray as hard as he can. Just letting gravity assist him in making a point. He looks at Wayne with that anger in his eyes that Wayne would really like to avoid.

They don’t need the first disagreement they have since Eddie’s accident to be in a hospital.

“Alright then,” Wayne backs down. “How’s the physical therapy going?”

That starts a new rampage. But one with frustration not directed at Wayne. The doctor taking the fall of what Wayne started. Eddie getting frustrated at the way his limbs keep failing to do the things he once was able to. The way they stiffen up when he strains them too much. Or how the pain can just start shooting through and never stop. Not just for hours, maybe a day or two. Where the pain meds can’t seem to dull them enough where Eddie can stop thinking about it.

It's hard to watch. Has been and will continue to be. There probably won’t be a day where Eddie will be the way he used to. Constantly in some sort of pain. Reminded of the moment his life changed forever.

The visiting hours end, and Wayne has to leave. It never gets easier, leaving. Just marks another tally of the endless line of days Eddie’s been in the hospital. It seems endless, anyway. Even with the talks of being discharged, it still feels like there’s no hope.

He tries to find it. Tries to keep the candle lit for more than a few seconds. It doesn’t always work. But he’s trying.

No matter how many times Wayne opens the front door of the Harrington house, it still doesn’t feel real. He’s been staying there for a week now, and each time the key slides into the lock, it feels like a dream. Or a really cruel prank.

But it’s real. All of this is.

“If you get more flour in my hair, I swear to God,” Steve’s voice echoes down the hall.

“Well than stop making it so easy for me,” Robin’s voice, if Wayne’s remembering correctly, follows.

He unties his boots and places them on the floor mat by the front door. Being very careful to follow the one major rule that Steve had when it came to the house. It was easy enough to follow. He wanders down the hall and into the kitchen. Walking into a mess. Different measuring cups and spoons scattered around the island, small piles of flour and other dry ingredients surrounding it. A pile of dishes in the sink. The slight smell of something that was burnt.

Honestly, he likes it better this way. Reminds him of home.

“Hi, Mr. Munson,” Robin chirps. Eating chocolate chips right out of the bag.

“Oh hey,” Steve looks up from bowl he was mixing. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Wayne nods hello. “What are you making?”

“Chocolate chip cookies,” Steve explains, looking toward Robin. “Because someone wanted cookies but didn’t want to do it herself.”

“We didn’t have any chocolate chips in the house,” Robin shrugs. Pouring another handful of chips into her mouth.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Didn’t believe it the first time and I don’t believe it now.”

He turns around to grab the baking sheets, leaving an opportunity for Robin to steal the spatula out of the bowl. Helping herself to raw cookie dough. Steve sighs when he turns around.

“Shouldn’t you also be scared of salmonella, Miss ‘Rabies is like my number one biggest fear?’” he snarks, searching in the drawer for an ice cream scoop.

“Rabies and salmonella are two very different things.” Robin continues to eat the batter off of the spoon. “How’s Eddie?” she asks, directed toward Wayne.

“Better,” he says with more confidence than he feels. Not being able to ignore the way Steve perks up when Eddie’s name is mentioned.

“That’s good,” Steve says. The gentle click of the ice cream scoop filling the break of silence.

Wayne nods. Feeling the need to cross his arms. “Yeah. The doctor says if he keeps his progress steady over the next week, he should be able to come home.”

Steve and Robin look at him with mirrored hope.

“That-that’s really good,” Steve smiles. “It’ll be nice seeing him outside of the hospital.”

“And hiding,” Robin adds. Throwing the spatula in the sink.

Wayne nods. Still feeling out the awkwardness of these interactions. “I’m going to turn in, just wanted to say hello.”

“Let us know if we’re being too loud. I can always kick her out.”

“Hey.” Robin slaps Steve’s arm.

“Night,” Wayne leaves the room. Swallowing a laugh.

tag list (closed): @the-they-who-nerded, @insteviewetrust, @croatoan-like-its-hot, @jettestar,

@tinyplanet95, @steddie-as-they-go, @slv-333, @littlecelestialmoth, @thatonebadideapanda,

@fandomsanddeath, @marismorar, @wonderland-girl143-blog, @glass-bottle03, @gutterflower77,

@here4thetrama, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @jaytriesstuff, @cryptid-system, @manda-panda-monium,

@resident-gay-bitch, @anaibis, @xxsutherlandxx, @forevermineliv, @mugloversonly,

@gregre369, @n0-1-important, @different-tale-student, @spectrum-spectre, @tartarusknight,

@devondespresso, @swimmingbirdrunningrock, @cheertain, @anti-ozzie, @autumncrocusandladybug,

@greeniebean911, @cr0w-culture, @stillfullofshit, @connected-dots, @daisynotquake,

@morgannotlefay, @a-little-unsteddie, @dolphincliffs, @maskofmirrors, @me-and-my-sloth,

@papergrenade, @waelkyring, @sweetheartprincess28, @katouasobj, @astercomoasflores

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 14

I really loved the title page showing how Marcille does her hair. If my hair was long enough to do it, I'd try it myself. My favorite part is the braid around her ears.

Her actual hairstyle this chapter isn't the same as the title page though. Instead, she keeps the side braids but wraps her long hair into a large loop ending in a ponytail.

I love these little beat panels. The party is so prone to awkward silences and it's always funny whenever it happens. All of them try very hard to be polite but no one ever knows what to say when they know being honest would upset someone.

We've got some info on magic. It requires the user to take care of their hair. And poor grooming can affect how well support magic can work on a person.

Senshi ought to engage in proper grooming to at least make sure hair doesn't get into the food.

There is some light environmental storytelling about the first expeditions to 4F. By the looks of things, the first people to reach 4F had to smash the walls open to actually access the level. Then builders had to come in to build platforms for adventurers to actually be able to enter the floor.

I get the feeling the upper level was either opened first or had to be made so builders could safely haul and drop the walkways into the water.

Since Senshi doesn't have any means of crossing the water, this is probably the furthest he's ever gone down the dungeon.

All his earlier instances of deriding Marcille's magic had some merit to them, but now Senshi is just being a stubborn old goat. Even if his concern about relying on magic too much will harm his ability to act without it being available, the waterwalking skill is a practical solution to the situation at hand.

He's acting like that employee who's worked at the company for thirty years and takes several hours to fill out a spreadsheet because they don't know how to use any of the calculating tools. Then they stubbornly refuse to let you show them how to fill it quickly cause it's the way they've always done it.

The way Marcille applied waterwalking to Senshi implies that the part where she taps her feet was just performative. As long as she hits you with her staff, the spell is applied.

Senshi didn't immediately sink so the spell works somewhat. I guess the waterwalking spell is less "You can now stand on water" and more "the rate at which your body displaces the water beneath your feet is reduced."

I hated physics but I kind of want to go back through topics related to density, waves, buoyancy, and kinetic energy because of this moment. Real quick, buoyancy is the force that fluids exert in opposition to the gravitational force of an object in it. If buoyancy is stronger than the gravitational force, the object will float over the fluid. If gravity is stronger, the object will sink. There's more to it of course, but I think this is enough background for my upcoming ramble.

When Marcille jumped into the water, there was a tiny splish and some ripples formed around the point of contact. So she made physical contact with the water, but her spell prevented the kinetic energy that would transfer to the water on contact from dispersing the water to any degree that would cause her to fall into it. So the gravitational force she's exerting on the water is so low that she can stand on the water.

I know this is one of those "It's magic. Don't worry about it" moments, but I'd love to consider alternate uses for this spell considering what it appears to be doing. If the spell actually reduces density or weakens the gravitational force that acts against bouyancy, could a sinking ship be saved by applying this spell to it or a sunken ship be raised using it? And can it be used with other liquids? Could a variant be made that can let a person float in the air (This would have to be made with caution cause if it works the way I'm describing, it could easily catapult someone into the stratosphere).

Of all people to oppose Senshi's idea of riding a Kelpie across the water, you'd never suspect Laios. He's the one who comes across as the most likely to want to befriend monsters. But it turns out that he has far more sense about things.

Yes, Laios loves monsters. However, he isn't blind to the reality of what they are. In chapter 8, Senshi talked about the care that goes into living in the dungeon and feeling like you're part of it, but he's overstepping his bounds with Anne. By assuming he can tame and ride her, he's not respecting that she is a dangerous creature that should be treated as such.

The initial interaction with Anne reminded me of a Youtube video of a guy sitting by a river and a grizzly bear casually walks up to him and sits next to him. The bear was docile and the guy wasn't in any danger, yes. But it would be a bad idea to walk up to the bear or try to pet it. And the guy in the video was definitely afraid during that interaction because he was sitting next to a grizzly bear.

Laios also seems to be speaking from experience.

The first hint that Anne wasn't as sweet as she seemed is she chewed on Senshi's blood-soaked beard.

Laios saw what was going to happen from a mile away and lassoed Anne's tail just before she submerged. He even looks like he's saying "I told you!" when Anne begins to descend.

After killing her, Senshi decided to prepare Anne's body to eat it. He's not very emotive, but he's genuinely upset that the bond he thought he had didn't exist. He sees himself as part of the dungeon, but even though he helps take care of it, that doesn't mean the monsters are going to treat him as anything other than potential prey.

Maybe he started to realize that he hadn't given her the proper respect she deserves as a dangerous kelpie. Eating her is a way to give respect though. He's not going to leave her body to rot. If he's going to be part of the dungeon, then he should participate in its ecosystem. His eagerness to use the soap Marcille made from Anne's fat might be an extension to that respect.

Marcille knows how to make soap from scratch. Since hygiene and grooming are important parts of magic, she probably was taught how to make use of what's available.

Oh my gosh! He's so fluffy!!

Senshi's stubbornness and insistence on doing things his own way almost got him killed. At least he's willing to be more flexible now. And he's noticing there are some enjoyable experiences that require magic.

SENSHI FLASH!!

back

[multi-fandom-imagines8]

Can I request for Anakin Skywalker? The reader is dating him and she is informed of a loved one dying and Anakin comforts her. Anakin was close to her family so he’s upset about it, too.

A/N: sorry it took so long to get to this request. I hope you enjoy it 💜

Warnings: angst, parental death, grief.

Fictober Challenge

As the sun set over your apartment, warm golden hues bathed the living room, highlighting your hunched and trembling form. The message you received earlier felt like a knife to the chest, twisting every heartbeat. Clutching a cherished memento in your hand, your vision blurred with tears as overwhelming grief passed down on you, suffocating and unrelenting.

Anakin had just returned home, and you didn’t even have the strength to look up. 

“Y/n?” His voice, soft and full of concern, cut through the haze of sorrow. He stood a few feet away, his brows drawn together in worry as he took in the sight of you, so broken and lost. The warmth in his blue eyes was tinged with fear- fear of what or who could have hurt you this deeply.

You tried to compose yourself, wiping at your tears hastily, but it was useless. You took a shuddering breath and looked up at him, your lips quivering. “Anakin…” Your voice cracked, and the pain in your expression hit him like a physical blow.

He was at your side in an instant, kneeling before you and reaching for your hands. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice urgent yet gentle, his fingers wrapping around yours. The worry etched on his face deepened as he saw the anguish in your eyes.

You swallowed hard, struggling to find the words. All that came out was a broken whisper. “I…my father…he’s-” The sentence crumbled in your throat, too painful to speak, as if voicing it would make it real.

His eyes widened in shock, and for a heartbeat, he was speechless, absorbing the gravity of your words. Your father had meant a great deal to him as well, like a father figure he had never known. Anakin had never experienced the bond between a father and a son, but after you started dating, your father had stepped into that role, treating him like his own, giving him a sense of belonging and warmth that had been absent his entire life. 

Anakin knew he was gone without you having to utter the words; he felt you, felt your pain as deeply as if it were his own. Without hesitation, he pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly, as if his embrace could shield you from the crushing pain. His jaw clenched, and his throat worked as he fought back his own tears, his grief entwined with yours. But he needed to be strong for you, even as his own heart broke.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. He rested his cheek against the top of your head, his fingers threading gently through your hair. “I…I wish I could take your pain away. I wish I could fix this.” The helplessness in his voice made his heart ache even more. He was used to being the hero, to saving people, to protecting you, but this- this was something he couldn’t fight.

Seeing you so shattered broke something inside him. His hands trembled as he held you. “You don’t deserve this,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “It’s not fair. You deserve happiness, not…not this.”

You sobbed into his chest, your fists clutching the fabric of his robes. “I just…I can’t believe it,” you cried, your voice muffled. “It hurts so much, Anakin.”

He pulled you back just enough to cup your face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away your tears even as his own threatened to spill. The pain of not being able to do more than hold you tore at him, but he forced himself to focus on you. “I know,” he said, his voice breaking. “I know it hurts. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get through this together, I promise.”

His forehead pressed against yours, his grief clear in his eyes, but he held on to you with all the strength he could muster.

Even if he couldn’t take away your pain, he would stay with you through every moment of it, sharing the burden, loving you fiercely.

You leaned into him, resting your head against his chest, his arms wrapping around you in protective embrace. He rubbed soothing circles on your back with one hand, not saying anything further, just silently conveying his support. He knew that more words couldn’t heal this wound, and that his presence was just what you needed most right now.

He rested his chin on top of your head, his eyes closing as he continued to hold you, hoping his touch would offer some comfort and solace.

Eventually, exhaustion claimed you, and you drifted off in his arms. He looked down at your sleeping form, a soft, unguarded expression gracing your features. A surge of tenderness swept through him, and he found himself gently brushing a loose strand of hair away from your face, his heart aching with love and the wish that he could protect you from every pain in the galaxy.

Tags: @mother-dragon-and-her-hatchlings @aoi-targaryen

[azzie89]

Gravity-Chapter Eleven

(A Lukas Matsson Fanfic)

Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven

Warnings: cliffhanger, reader has very low self-esteem

Lukas was adamant now that they go public and tell your family. You absolutely were not. You thought your father would have a heart attack if he found out you were pregnant while unmarried.

"But Ella..."

"No," Ella denied. "We can tell my family after the deal."

"At least move in with me then."

"After the deal."

He groaned, "You're so fucking stubborn."

"Okay," he sighed. "But what about you working so much? It's not healthy, Ella."

"I'll cut back. I promise," you said before pecking him on the lips.

And you got your way. Still, no one in your family knew about you and Lukas. The deal was expected to close in about two months though and you'd barely be in your second trimester. That was more than enough time in your pregnancy to then go and live with Lukas while also dealing with your family coming around to the idea.

You didn't worry about that right now though. Currently, you were happy. You went to go see a doctor for your first prenatal appointment. It was too early to see the sex or see it on ultrasound. But you got on all the necessary vitamins.

You kept up with your workout routine which was yoga. It was the only form of exercise that you'd been able to keep up with. It was because you could do it in bed. When you had been depressed a year ago just laying in bed, you didn't have the energy for anything and didn't do anything. But once you started to gain some after being put on meds, you started up yoga.

And you kept at it. It did become more rigorous as you tried more demanding forms. But because of it, you were extremely flexible which Lukas knew all too well. You hoped that it would help you with all the changes your body was going to go through and then going back to a normal body. You did not want stretch marks; the possible imperfection made you scared that Lukas would leave you.

You did good at keeping that paranoid thought out of your brain though. And you did take a step back from work. You let your assistant handle some things. It allowed you to do more planning with Lukas.

One day you were at his house in Sweden. One of the rooms was being redecorated to be a baby room. The floor was covered in plastic as it was being painted. You were painting on one side of the wall while sitting on a stool so you stayed off your feet for a long time. The window was open to allow ventilation. You were making it colorful and painting animals on the wall.

Lukas came in to help you. One side of the room was just going to be a solid color, a mint green. He painted that wall and you were still working on yours. He came over to you, watching how focused you were. You bit your lip as you painted so carefully.

"I think you should take a break," Lukas suggested.

"I'm almost done," you said.

"Ella," he scolded before he caressed your cheek, not realizing he had paint on his hands.

But you could feel it. You gasped and your hand flattened on the wall. You also had paint on your hands and it created a handprint once you removed your hand.

"Lukas!"

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry."

He looked at you like a puppy that was scolded. You didn't notice as you stared at the handprint. You gained an idea as you grabbed his hand and placed it flat against the wall to overlap your own handprint. Then you removed his hand and stared at the two handprints.

You smiled as you did so. You didn't know what you liked about it. You supposed you liked it because it created an actual physical imprint that signified that they were always joined together.

Lukas stared at your smile. You smiled beautifully over something so simple and he was in awe over you. He swallowed before he gained the courage to tell you.

"Ella," he called.

You hummed in acknowledgement without looking at him.

"Look, I'm just gonna say something and I don't want you to get into it like you do. I'm just gonna fucking say it and we're gonna move on, okay?"

"Okay," you frowned slowly before turning your eyes to him. "But it's bad, isn't it?"

"Ella."

"You don't actually want to have a baby with me, do you?"

"What? No. Ella, I'm trying to tell you that I...I love you."

You had carried on rambling while he talked, "I knew it. I knew you wouldn't...wait, you...."

Your world seemed to slow down as you heard those words. I love you. You barely ever heard those words so when you heard them now it felt like a tidal wave of disbelief.

You breathed heavily, "Can you just....can you just say it again?"

He swallowed and hunched down before uttering as he stared at you intensely, "I really fucking love you, alright?"

"But why?"

He sighed, "If I told you I thought you were...fucking perfect, would you believe me?"

You shook your head.

"Then don't ask," he said. "But just know when I imagine life, I can't even see the rest of mine without you. If I even think about it, it's just...fucking depressing. Life without my girl, my Ella...it can't ever be a possibility."

"It won't be."

"No?"

"I'm too attached. I love you too much."

"Yeah?" he smiled.

"Yes. Yes. Always. You know how I said my father was like gravity," you revealed. "Well, you're like that to me now."

He stared before he kissed you quickly. His hands tangled in your hair and your hands grabbed onto his shirt. The two of you got paint all over each other as he picked you up to carry you out of the room. The paint would wash away but the stain of him in your heart like invisible ink would always remain.

____

Despite not telling your family, he did tell his. His mother knew, well, more like she found out. You were now meeting her as you made Lukas invite her over for dinner. He hated the idea but he relented for you. Lukas was tense before she arrived; you squeezed his hand and gave you a small, reassuring smile.

His mother was called Irene. You smiled once she entered and even hugged her because you were nothing if not a hugger. She barely formed a smile as she looked you over, analyzing you, with her beady eyes.

"Well, I see why my son couldn't resist getting into bed with you."

Your eyes widened.

"Mother," he chastised and his accent was strong as he did so.

Everything was tense after that as the three sat down to eat. You sat beside Lukas while his mother sat across from them at the table. And then the questions started.

"And where are you planning to stay when the baby comes?"

"With Lukas."

"And how do you plan to contribute when the baby comes? He tells me you're leaving work."

"She'll be the mother of my child. That's contribution enough," Lukas said. "Drop it."

"You're so young, dear. Are you sure you even want the baby?" Irene questioned. "Don't let that be the reason you stay with him if you don't want to be."

"I...I want to be with Lukas."

Irene clenched her jaw before looking at Lukas, "Did you have to tie yourself to someone so young? You couldn't have found someone your own age."

"It doesn't matter now."

"Of course it matters. It's still early. She can get an abortion...."

Lukas stood so fast that his chair fell over onto the floor, "That's it. I'm done. We're done. You can leave now."

Irene huffed before getting up to leave. Lukas followed her to make sure she left. You heard them arguing in the entranceway about you.

"She's too young for you."

"She's in her twenties. It's not like she's a fucking teenager."

"A girl like that has options. If she's the type to get knocked up without even being married, then she could very well get knocked up by anyone who gives her the time of day."

His voice was deadly as he spoke very calmly, "Don't ever fucking insinuate that she's a whore to me ever again."

"You've known her for four months, Lukas. You're moving too fast."

"Baby or no baby, it wouldn't change anything. That is my girl. I love her. I fucking love her. End of discussion," Lukas stated and your heart skipped a beat hearing him say those words. "Disrespect her again and we're done."

You heard the front door shut and close. Then moments later, Lukas entered the dining room again. You bit your lip as you made a joke, "The holiday dinners will be so much fun."

"Very," he chuckled as he righted his chair before kissing the top of your head. "We'll be okay."

You smiled before he caressed your cheek as he said, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"You shouldn't be talked about like that. I don't like it," he scratched at his chest. "It...It'll never happen again. I promise."

"I don't care if your mother thinks that. I just care what you think," you muttered.

He leaned his forehead against yours as he looked into your eyes. Your dark blue eyes. You looked at him with such reverence.

"You'll always be my perfect Ella," he smiled softly before he kissed you while you blushed red. And dinner became a dinner for two.

_____

Three weeks had passed since you found out you were pregnant and Lukas was with you in London. You had gone to dinner with him. The two of you were being driven back to your apartment in your limo.

You were discussing possible names with him if it was a girl or boy. He had one hand on your stomach and the other was wrapped around your shoulders. You giggled at a name he came up when bright lights seemed to flood your window.

And then everything went dark.

[peydawgz]

saw your requests are open and i was wondering if you could do a lil thing where reader is like a inventor and makes a star projector for siebren?? romantic ofc :] hope u have a wonderful day!! !

You Gave Me The Universe || Siebren de Kuiper (Sigma) x Reader

Thank you for your request!!! I hope you like this!! It’s a little angsty, but wholesome ending :3

You and Siebren were tasked to work on a project together, your brilliant minds pairing perfectly. He came up with the ideas and physics, and you brought it to life. He was for the most part quiet, but he would go on rambles when the inspiration sparked.

You understood the trauma behind his mask. You took notice to the way he’d get lost in thoughts, the fear and anxiety, the shaking anger and frustrations. You were the only peaceful thing to come about his sad life. When the black hole appeared around him, and the gravity began to rise, he thought before there was no way to stop him. The thought of hurting the only one who could understand, oh it was like you had a sweet control over him.

Was it fear? Was it anxiety keeping him from you? You hadn’t seen him in a few days, you assumed he was recovering from his outburst. In the meantime, you worked on your own side project. It was just something small, something to keep his mind occupied and make the music fade for once. You cultivated a tiny machine, interpreting his interest in astronomy to create a holographic star projector. It would follow each moon phase, and could zoom in and out of each part of the known galaxy. You’d put so much work into it, you just hoped he would show up eventually so you could give it to him.

After waiting through your usually workday hours with no sign of him, you decided to pay Siebren a visit and see what was up. You tried to call but he would not answer, you still showed up anyways. You knocked on his door, expecting no answer but it only took two seconds before the door creaked open and the tall man stood before you. He wore a comfortable attire, black long pants and a plain white shirt. He looked defeated and uneasy, making you think perhaps he didn’t want you here. It was refreshing just to see him, though, you were worried of the disaster he could cause.

Without exchanging a hello, you lunged into Siebren’s chest, throwing your arms around him as to heal his saddened heart. He was tense, but completely relaxed at your touch. He sighed and invited you in for tea, happy to see your face as well. He didn’t want you to remember him for the monster he showed you he could be. You sat together and talked, mostly you catching him up a bit before getting to your point.

“I made something for you, to help you rest and strengthen your focus.” You told him. He looked shocked, he must not often receive gifts. Before he could say any mess about you didn’t have to get him anything- you told him to close his eyes. You carefully set up the projector out on the table, and shut off the lights. He had a smile creeping over his face, his demeanor changing into excitement.

“Okay you can open them up now.” You take your seat back next to him. He peeks at first, then opens his eyes and mouth in awe as he stares upon the illuminated ceiling. “You made this,, for me??” His voice is almost childlike in bewilderment, and the stars reflect on his glassy eyes. “Yeah! This way, you can relax, when your mind gets fogged up or if you need to fall asleep.” You responded.

“Fascinating…” he mumbled as he lifted a hand, controlling the coordinates with his gravity powers. As you watched him inspect your handmade device, you admired his happiness in this moment. In a state where all chaotic forces do not control him, his intelligence beams. He names each constellation out loud, like checking off a list he knows all too well. He pulled back so far out of the known universe you were staring into the purple clouds and star pools of your own galaxy, suddenly feeling small.

“You are extraordinary. I can’t thank you enough for this… you know me so well.” He said as he faced you. He pulled you in for another hug, his hands holding the fabric of your clothing like something might steal you away from him. He made a mental decision to keep you away from danger, to protect you at all costs and to also cherish your gift to him. No more running and hiding- he would have to fight with his mind to get it under more control, and was thankful for your help to allow him to see this path.

You were taken back by suddenly his whole body covering you in his craving grasp, not understanding the amount of emotion behind it. He was shaking a little, giving you the impression he may cry or his thoughts were becoming too much. You gently caress his back, and slowly moved up to pet his soft, greying hairs as if to soothe him.

His convulsions were that of being overloaded with affection aggression, his desire making him want to nearly crush you, with how sweet and caring you treated him. All signs in his head were pointing to yes, and he could no longer doubt those emotions any longer. He pulls away slowly, his gaze looking among the beautiful swirling colors around you, your own eyes moving around the room as well. He caught your chin with his fingers, crashing his lips into yours very passionately, like letting go of all that held him back. Your face felt hot, a blush showing over your cheeks as you moved closer for more. Once the kiss was over, Siebren slouched over and tucked his face into your neck, scared to look you in the eye for what he’d done. You thought he was so cute, trying to reassure him with more petting and caressing. He moved back, still looking away shyly, you were supposed to be just a coworker, how could he let himself be so inconsiderate to your profession. He looked sad with what he’d done, guilty even.

“It’s okay! I feel the same. There’s no need to worry about later, we should just enjoy now.” You assured him, always being the bright light in his black hole thoughts. He chuckled, reminding himself to relax again, and he leaned back into your touch to enjoy being in the moment with you.

“I can’t thank you enough for all that you do for me. My affection for you goes deeper than the universe.”

[theskyexists]

I think its hilarious that Andy Weir made the go-getter administrator who's supposed to organise saving the world Dutch. Stratt is not a Dutch name btw. So maybe German heritage or marriage. The blunt, direct, no nonsense, even unintentionally rude stereotype which is often correct in small ways is a funny little in-joke. I even think he got the speech pattern in English correct....

Wow powerful woman...

I will say this: he didn't find out how to make the astrophage release energy? He found out how they reproduce? So... Why did they say that? Are they just burning these lil dots?

How is the astrophage what it is. How is it not destroyed by pressure and such. And.

Why in the heck would they swerve around going from a CO2 rich planet back to the sun... Is that really more efficient than simply covering a planet in yourself and being a plant basically?

Ok so he did find out how the astrophage release energy, as in, move themselves with light.

What's the problem with the sun dimming if Eridians don't get any energy from the sun?/sunlight doesn't reach them?

Oh I actually felt so sad for Leclerc, when he cried.

And I love Stratt so much lol. Who was bright enough to put her in charge. She's the perfect 'war'-time leader. Completely selfless.

Oh. Im so sad for rocky. 46 years. Oh no...oh no.

Oh Stratt was being sexist... That's not realist. Will Weir refute her via Ryland? Yeah he did. Hah. That's cool.

Its weird that Rocky hasn't considered: if I am no longer in my workshop, then I won't be protected from radiation.

Did they not test the teams/teammates for psychological compatibility???? Oversight

I dont really get how they can catch astrophage without getting blasted apart by their insane speeds hopping from planet to sun and back.

"Life can be pretty picky about temperature ranges."

EXCEPT ASTROPHAGE? and all the other cells in the cold vacuum of space?? They just skipped over them. Hello??? What's their secret? Do they also smash neutrinos together or whatever?? I couldn't follow that physics bit

Aww. The team all liked him so much because he's so normal and easily upset by e.g. their approaching deaths.

I'm a bit worried that Weir is going to prove Stratts sexism right by having Shapiro and DeBois back out because she got pregnant or something. But that's really not in line with the vibe so maybe they just both get killed because of their entanglement... I still wouldn't like that. Honestly Stratt's throwback to 'two men one woman sex will make advanced astronauts revert to cavemen' seems like a deliberate callback to all those sci fi books that insist on the inherent murderous explosiveness of male sexuality.

'math is procedure [not thinking]' uh yeah it is biologically.

Weir shunting in a lil personal theory on intelligence being based on gravity. Interesting. But the reason why Rocky and protag are same intelligence is the same reason their civilisations are about as advanced: they wouldn't otherwise have met.

It's hilarious that Ryland is like: I miss my kids they looked up to me. EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD PROBABLY LOOKS UP TO YOU RIGHT NOW MY MAN

Yeah. At the last possible moment, astrophage exploded the place that Shapiro and DeBois were in. Damn. Ok but its kinda on Stratt TO BE HONEST. That she let prime crew role member and same secondary crew role member hang around the same place together at all. In a way.

This seems to imply that they left Shapiro and DuBois to do an experiment on ASTROPHAGE TOGETHER. what??? That they cause the explosion even.

Why let the science crew at an astrophage at all? WHY LET THEM AT IT TOGETHER??? HELLO????

honestly why was Stratt so lax about all primary personnel safety all along including herself?? Why was she on the airplane carrier that was doing experiments with bombs????

Ok but how the HELL did astrophage develop these abilities????

Also. Why. Uh. Why bother with a natural predator if you can just prick em. Aren't there lots of creatures that can prick other cells. Though probably not in nigh-vacuum...

How did they make a spaceship without electronics.... ...huh??? How does the robot work on the outside of Rocky's ship? ....what

Ok so they don't have procedures for testing astrophage. BUT ALSO WHY WERE BOTH ESSENTIAL CREW MEMBERS IN THE SAME ROLE TESTING EDGE CASES??? HELLO???? HOW WAS THAT ALLOWED??? HELLO???? STRATT????

Ok but she kept a tertiary science specialist then i guess she kept tertiary other specialists. But also. The narrative acts like she had no part and final responsibility in letting her specialists do dangerous ass stupid tests. Like there aren't a hundred other people they could have gotten to do TESTS AWAY FROM THE IMPORTANT CREW

Why would you wait for his answer. Just get the next in line out NOW.

In fact. Why the heck wouldn't they train up at least six understudies. Theatre shows even do that. This narrative development was the one I was reading towards and it turned out stupid.

Also. They got a biologist for tests, an engineer for maintenance, and a commander. Was the commander the navigator and maths guy? Or are all astronauts supposed to be able to do what Grace does? Complex space calculations? Like. Lucky he remained in form firstly and secondly that hes so gifted at physics????? He's a biologist right? But I guess also a physicist?

Stratt doesn't respect Grace? Even now? Then she is kind of an idiot after all. Like all very strong-minded people are ... Too convinced of herself. She relied on Grace for a huge part. And she doesn't respect him? Because she herself could never be a coward. That's idiotic. She cannot forgive cowardice because she herself finds it much easier than others to be ruthless.

I could accept this twist a little more if the leadup had made more sense. Stratt is murdering Grace for sure - but the narrative insult of her having been able to prevent that by explicitly training up additional crews instead of quietly training Grace PLUS doing a better job of keeping the prime crew from STUPID DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS - and the actual insult of calling him a COWARD while doing it - that's like. That was their last interaction. Makes me feel vindictive. Hope she regrets it. She wouldn't regret sending him against his will. But the damn insult to somebody who she has worked closely with, who delivered extremely important discoveries, who did every single secondary administration.

Ok so. And important point of Grace for Rocky was that he had science equipment. But now Grace is like: eh. Rocky can make better equipment. Why didn't Rocky think of that lol

On the other hand Grace HAS proven to be kind of a reckless idiot again and again and again.

Right they've got electronics but not transistors. Right.

I feel like Weir should have spent a little more flashback on Grace bonding with his 'crew' and 'friends'.

Why the FUCK would you send out your beetles while on the trip. Send them out before you start on the risky way home. Why is Grace such an idiot.

Stratt goes to talk to Grace. I don't know I've soured on her. Not because of what she chose to do to Grace but the way she did it.

She doesn't even leave him in fucking peace

Ok so I don't like how Weir did this scene either. It didn't give Grace a moment of grace. And it didn't give Stratt the chance to say: well the good thing about you going is that you won't be here when everything is going to hell. Think about that.

Why are the taumoeba farms manually fed...? Didn't Grace want the option of going into coma...?

HE WENT BACK TO ROCKY AND HE WENT BACK TO SAVE ERID AND ROCKY COULD BARELY SPEAK OR BELIEVE IT GRACE CAME BACK WHEN ROCKY THOUGH ABSOLUTELY ALL HOPE WAS LOST

Taumoeba are like normal amoeba...ok. but then why is it the only thing that can eat astrophage

He did it. And Earth doesn't even know that he did it. That he did it alone. Or that he met aliens, and they worked together to do it. He probably didn't even write it down and put it on the beetle. None of it. (Because he's kind of an idiot). Like. He probably didn't even tell them about the aliens!!!! Come on!!!! Anyway he's teaching little aliens.... Lovely

[quillandink333]

꓄ꀍꏂ ꈤꀤꁅꀍ꓄ ꂦꎇ ꓄ꀍꏂ ꌚꍏꏳꋪꀤꎇꀤꏳꏂ

“I WilL gRanT You OnE WiSh, cHild,” bellowed the dark entity that Emily seemed to have summoned through sheer willpower. She’d been poking around with her friend, _____, in the book on ‘demonic rituals for dummies’ she’d just gotten her hands on at their local alt shop the other day, when this thing had appeared, darkening the forest and painting the sky blood red.

“Really? So, I can just ask for anything I want? Anything I can think of?” she asked, still not quite grasping the gravity of the situation.

“JuST bE QuiCk aBouT iT,” it snapped sharply in reply, making her stagger back a step. Apparently demons weren’t known for their patience.

“Uh?! Okay…” Her heart jumped at the sudden pressure put on her. “I wish for my brother to never love anyone but me. E-Ever.” The teenager in question, her and her friend’s only chaperone on this little camping trip, was asleep in their tent, oblivious to the seance happening just outside. “Please…?”

It was the first thing that came to her innocent young mind. No sooner than the words were out of her mouth, however, did she come to regret them. She heard a thud next to her, then turned and saw her best and only friend strewn face down on the forest floor, half within the borders of the summoning circle and half without.

Word Count: 1.5k

Yoongi awoke with a start at the sound of his sweet baby sister’s terrified scream. He wasted no time tearing himself out of his sleeping bag and ripping open the flap of the tent as fast as he could physically move his body. He only caught a glimpse of the entity—not enough to know exactly what it was but enough to know it was anything but natural—before it blinked out of sight, and the cloudy night sky flickered from red back to black. Despite the brevity of the sighting, Emily’s occult phase she’d been going through with _____ lately gave him context enough. Before leaving the apartment, he’d seen her sneaking that book of rituals from the alt shop into her bag when she thought no one was looking. He could hardly believe it himself, but the pieces were just falling into place too easily to ignore.

The poor thing was frozen stiff, stood over the soulless body with a deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes. The first thing Yoongi did upon seeing her was take her into his arms. She didn’t resist nor did she say a word. “Shhh, shhh… You’re okay. You haven’t done anything wrong,” he soothed with gentle urgency, but all she could do was cry like a child who hadn’t yet learned to speak. This didn’t surprise him; she’d always seemed to have more trouble processing language than the other kids in her class. He suspected it was a symptom of the neurological condition she obviously had but that their parents refused to look into out of sheer ignorance. His first goal for when he turned eighteen was to get her professionally diagnosed. He’d worry about the whole financial stability thing at a later point.

Realigning his focus to the situation at hand, he guided his little girl inside the tent and told her to wait for him there. The highest priority right now was clearing her of suspicion. Immediately he got to work clearing away the makeshift runes they’d drawn into the dirt and filled in with the juices from the pack of brisket they’d brought and cooked up for dinner a few hours earlier. In a mentally intrusive way, he was somewhat impressed by their resourceful handiwork. Moreover he was relieved that neither of them had resorted to cutting themselves open.

The next step was to deal with the corpse. They couldn’t just leave it here and come back to _____’s family empty handed without an explanation. People were going to know she’d died, but both he and Emily were minors and therefore couldn’t legally be held liable for negligence or anything like that. So he decided the safest course of action was to make it look like the girl had drowned in the lake they were camping next to. Better to lie and establish a believable cause of death than to let them figure the real one out on their own. Then he’d wrap the body up in the tarp they’d packed and bring it home with them in the trunk of the car the next morning. He could only hope it wouldn’t reek too badly by then.

Yoongi got straight to work executing the next stages of his plan. Thankfully he was used to burying any negative emotions that arose deep down in the darkest crevices of his soul, so doing the dirty work was less of a bother to him than he’d expected. Once it was done, he changed into some dry clothes and went to check on Emily.

His heart sank to see her still shivering in the corner, trying so hard to stay strong despite her tears. “Hey…” He crawled inside and pulled her up into his lap from behind, pressing his nose into her tangled head of hair and hoping his breath would warm her up a bit. “It’s gonna be okay, butterfly,” he whispered, not knowing what else he could say.

“No, it won’t,” she whimpered, which sent her into another wave of uncontrollable sobs. She turned around in his lap and buried her face in his shoulder, clinging to his hoodie with only her tiny, trembling hands.

His own rubbed up and down her back at a comfortingly consistent pressure and pace. He knew how much her friendship with _____ had meant to her, and while he knew she would grow out of her grief eventually, it frightened him to see her so consumed by it here and now. “It will,” he faithfully repeated. “It might not be okay right now, but I promise it won’t hurt like this forever. For now, just let it out. Cry as much as you need to, okay? I’m here, Oppa’s right here…and he always will be.”

The two of them sat there in the tent, neither saying a word, for what felt like an hour. When her tears finally began to run out, he took the opportunity to distract her from all that had happened. “Hey, how ’bout some ‘Warriors’ before we hit the sack?” he smiled.

“Oh. You brought it?” She raised her head and looked up at him, eyes shining like dewdrops. It was her favourite series at the moment, and though he hadn’t had the chance in a week or two because of exam season, Yoongi had made a tradition of reading it to her at bedtime as her eyes grew heavy.

“I did. Here.” He picked her up and plopped her down next to him on the bed roll so he could get up and start rummaging through his backpack.

But as he turned his back toward her, she caught sight of something that definitely hadn’t been there when they’d arrived and set up camp. On the nape of his neck, there had appeared the image of an eye as if drawn in crimson ink, giving off a faint, almost invisible glow.

By the time he’d retrieved the paperback and turned to face her again, she hadn’t had the chance to consider the ominous sigil in great detail before she was hit by one of her seizures, wiping her short term memory clean—a regular occurrence for her. “Okay, let’s get tucked in and then I’ll start,” her beloved Oppa offered, unzipping their shared sleeping bag and letting her settle in first before getting himself comfy beside her.

He lay on his back while she moulded herself to his side, looking like an abandoned puppy. Holding the book open in front of him with one hand, he reached around with his other and stroked her hairline with all the tenderness he could muster. He read aloud to her in an equally tender tone, of clans and kittypets, rivalries and rebellions…until he felt her drooling on his sweatshirt.

With a soft snicker, he bookmarked the page he was on when she fell asleep. Placing it next to him with his lighter and half empty pack of cigarettes, he turned onto his side and held her unconscious form protectively in his embrace. Before switching off the lantern, though, he fell still for a moment, dwelling on their rather grim circumstances. He knew it was irrational to do so at this point, but who wouldn’t have? He worried what their parents would do when they returned home, not for his own sake but mostly his sister’s. The infuriating truth was that his parents didn’t exactly consider themselves her parents, even though they were the ones who took on responsibility for fostering her. That night, he swore a silent oath to himself that he would always protect her, no matter what paths their lives would lead them down.

[specialinterestshows]

Back to my regularly scheduled writing and posting of Rhea Ripley x lady!reader fic. Also working on a request!

Warnings for this section: Cannabis (weed), kink (dirty talk, BDSM dynamic)

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Absolute Smokeshow (Part 21 of ?): Food For Thought

“I was thinking of making pizza for dinner,” you say as you walk into your apartment. Rhea had driven the two of you back from the gas station for safety’s sake.

“Making it? From scratch?” she asked, watching you walk over to the kitchen.

“Not exactly,” you take a plastic-wrapped mass out of the fridge, “I got the dough pre-made, it just needs stretching and toppings.”

“Sounds like you have a lot in common,” Rhea joked, smirking as you stick your tongue out at her.

“We can each make one, if you want,” you suggest, washing your hands.

“Sure,” she agrees, waiting next to you at the sink until you’re done so she can do the same. You divide the dough and handed over a section once her hands are clean. While you were patiently letting gravity increase the surface area of your dough, Rhea immediately started spinning hers as she tossed it in the air and caught it over and over.

“Careful not to drop it,” you warn, “The whole five-second rule thing is a myth.”

“You don’t have to tell me to be careful with anything physical,” she said haughtily, taking a moment to pose, “I’m an athlete.”

“You’re a wrestler,” you specify, “one of the few sports that doesn’t require hand-eye coordination for a small object.”

“Clearly you’ve never seen me take on Liv Morgan,” Rhea quipped back.

Once both of your pizzas are made and in the oven, you set a timer and head to the couch.

“Where did the time go?” Rhea sighed to herself, looking at the clock as you packed a bowl. Her visit ended tomorrow and neither one of you was sure when you would be able to see each other in person afterwards.

“When do I need to get you to the airport again?” you ask, trying to stuff down the feeling of melancholy and lifting the bong onto your lap.

“I have an alarm set,” she waved it off, “don’t need to think about that until tomorrow.”

“Lucky for you, I have something to help with the whole “not thinking” thing,” you say, pointing the lip of the bong in her direction.

“Light me,” Rhea orders, smiling at the face you make in response to the command - one she’s become familiar with as a sign that you’re turned on, despite any other indication. Keeping her hands at her sides, she places her lips on the bong as you hold it, lighting the bowl once she starts to inhale. Her eyes don’t leave you until she gives a pointed glance at the bowl and you pull it out, watching her take in the remaining smoke.

Setting the piece aside, you turn back to Rhea and her mouth is on yours without hesitation, one hand on your thigh. Once you’ve inhaled all the smoke she’s given you, she gropes your chest with her other hand, making you moan.

“Such a good girl,” Rhea teases, watching as you fill the space between you with smoke, obviously only one thing on your mind.

Shifting in your seat, you look at the timer for the food, knowing there wasn’t nearly enough time between now and then for either of you to get off.

“Don’t worry, love,” she says, a knowing look on her face as she pulls away, “We’ll have plenty of time for that tonight and tomorrow morning.”

Taking a hit of your own, you try to ignore the slideshow that’s playing in the back of your mind of every dirty thing she’s said to you, every touch, every hungry and slightly mischievous look at the noises you made.

Soon, the two of you are enjoying your food, music playing in the background, as you talk between bites.

“Now I’m just re-examining every relationship I’ve ever had with every pretty girl I’ve ever met,” Rhea admitted. The trip to the resource center had obviously unlocked something and she was much more open than she had been.

“Yeah?” you ask, smiling, “Who do you think you had a crush on?”

“Honestly?” she seemed lost in thought as she took a bite, chewing before finally answering, “… Quite a few girls, and women. Fuck, how was I so clueless?”

“Were you?” you remember thinking something similar when you first came out, “Sometimes it’s easier to assume this is how everyone feels and shrug it off that way. Other times, denial is just a survival technique.”

The two of you keep eating as she considers this.

“Better late than never, I guess,” Rhea finally says, shrugging, “Good thing it wasn’t too late to meet you” - and then, demeanor shifting slightly, groaning - “I’m gonna have to thank Dom for making me go to that fucking bar.”

You hadn’t considered this. Did you really have him to thank? You’d already thanked your friends for dragging you to the bar, but Rhea had been angry with Dominik that night and he hadn’t exactly been kind to you the day after. Doing your best to hide your conflicting emotions, you stuff your face with pizza and try to think about something else.

[end part twenty-one of ?]

Part 22: https://www.tumblr.com/specialinterestshows/725395735079731200/absolute-smokeshow-part-22-of-lesson-in

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Tag list (thank you!)

@cherryberryshine , @littlemiss-fanficlover , @elisewithak , @babybatlover , @girlofpink

[drabk-the-sharak-of-okbra]

i finally established enough of the story to write a synopsis, so:

My Planiverse x Gravity Falls crossover, All Seeing All Knowing Eyes (under the cut):

Yendred leaves on his journey to discover knowledge of the Beyond, having been in contact with the humans from the 'space beyond space' for a few days now. It is then that he is contacted by Bill. One of the ways Bill can enter into a person's Mindscape is if they continuously and deeply think about a higher being (like calling one for help, or philosophical thought on the existence of one.) This is how Yendred became of such interest to Bill-- his constant thoughts about 'space beyond space' and higher dimensions were basically a beacon of opportunity for Bill to take advantage of. Bill intends to use the Planiverse as a stepping stone to gain access to the 3rd dimension. Yendred is nothing but an expendable (and naive) pawn.

Bill promises him to provide him with infinite knowledge and experience about everything he's ever wanted to know. Bill uses his powers to prove that he's just as powerful as he claims to be, phasing in and out of his dimension, and tells Yendred all he must do in return in a little favor: building a portal to the 3D world so that Yendred may physically experience the higher dimensionality that could never be understood in just words. He accepts.

Bill starts out kind and reassuring, making sure his favorite puppet's morale is kept up. Because storing large amounts of information is almost impossible in their 2D world, apart from highly experimental and difficult to get computers, and complex structures are difficult to build, especially in secret, it takes much longer than Bill would like. It's also taking a toll on Yendred: he must continue his journey, and it's going to be impossible to hide his activities from the humans.

Bill has been unaware that Yendred has had contact with humans this entire time. When he finds out, he's furious that, one, they're going to impede his plans, and two, he's been sharing his precious pawn with some grubby meatsacks. He finds a way to infiltrate the computer that they're using to contact Yendred in order to shut it down and isolate them from Yendred. When he does so, one human in particular is extremely worried for Yendred: Alice.

She logs on day after day, attempting to contact Yendred even after their connection has been severed. In his pettiness, Bill starts to mess with this human who is trying her best to ruin his plan. He contacts her through ominous messages and symbols that do nothing but throw her for loops. He sabatoges all of her attempts to record any of their conversations, knowing that she can't tell anyone because she would be considered insane. She's slowly becomes more and more paranoid throughout her daily life, trying to find any trace of Bill's existence in the human world.

Meanwhile, Yendred is becoming uneasy about the plan. Though Bill tells him contact with the humans had to be cut off because they would have held him back from reaching three dimensions because of their sentimentality, he misses them every day, especially Alice, and his mental health is deteriorating. When he has spent many isolated years researching for and building the portal, he has a nightmare. The entire world has caught on fire, and he and Bill are floating above it all. Bill watches with a grin, and tells him how great of a team they made. It's the final breaking point for Yendred.

When he wakes, he tells Bill that he won't complete the portal if he won't let him speak to the humans. Bill is done treating him kindly-- he knows Yendred relies on him now too much to fight back in any way-- and flies into a rage. Yendred's world is a 2D plane which exists in a 3D void; Bill pulls him into it, showing him that it is completely empty and barren of all life. Yendred will never be able to see a true 3D world without the construction of the portal, which is only possible with Bill's instructions. This is all that awaits him if he shuns Bill. Yendred is terrified, and finishes the portal out of fear of both punishment from Bill and the prospect of that 'nothingness beyond nothingness.'

In these months, Alice has dug deep enough to find traces of Bill's interactions with the human world, obscure symbols and myths that all relate to him. She finds another person who believes in Bill's existence, a deeply passionate magician who wants to help Alice rid Yendred's world of Bill. They preform a 'binding spell' on a USB stick, telling her to use it the next time she tries to speak with Bill. She plans to transfer Bill into the USB stick, believing that part of him is tied to the computer because of his interactions with her on it. She is at her last resort of logic.

When Alice turns on the computer to contact Yendred, Bill allows her to, so that she can watch what Yendred's efforts have done. The portal has been turned on, and the entrance of the henchmaniacs has brought along with it fire. It spreads quickly in his dimension, burning and slowly killing him as he can't escape from the room. Alice puts the USB stick in the computer: Bill's guard is down, and the force of the spell binds him to the 2D world, preventing him from escaping from it. He is transferred into the USB stick. Yendred is as well.

Fire is deadly in Yendred's world, and such a steady supply of destruction quickly burns his dimension to the ground, leaving nothing but a wasteland that is falling apart at the seams and will eventually rot away. Alice doesn't watch to see the end of it. She can't bring herself to destroy the USB stick knowing Yendred is in there too. Instead, she opts to hide it somewhere. There is an obscure town in Oregon called Gravity Falls, one that nobody would know of unless they readily looked for it, and it has a cave that has a reputation for being haunted and nobody coming out alive. She buries the USB stick far underneath the ground in front of the cave, hoping that nobody will find it.

Yendred is stuck in his own mindscape, and the USB stick becomes its own little pocket dimension. Bill is stuck in a separate part from him, and has become static; the small spark of conciousness left in him isn't enough to bring him back to any sort of awareness, and he can only be awakened by somebody activating the USB stick and transfering him out. It will be a while before Ford Pines finds him.

[gutsheapofrawiron]

[GRIFFGUTS FANFIC] Only When The Crow Cried Did I See Why: Chapter 2

Exhaustion has killed my words, crumbling them as they are born in my mind just so I’ve been silenced a long time ago

Summary:

Griffith tries to get out and meets unexpected company. Casca is a girlboss, and Guts is struggling in more ways than one (sorry baby).

Read on AO3 or continue reading below

Griffith returned when night had fully taken hold, having allowed himself more time than what would probably be just short enough to go unnoticed. Curious glances were sent his way by the members of his band, but they were shy and quick; attempts to gain information without overstepping. A gnawing feeling settled in his stomach as he tried to make lasting eye contact with any of them, but failed every time. He was sure he looked alright, not like someone who just pathetically ran away and hid in the forest to have a breakdown.

The warm light of the fires lit all around helped to soothe his mood, and as he approached the heart of the camp, he saw Casca, the centre of the attention of the men as she talked to them, most likely telling them the general details of their plans for the coming days. Griffith felt the pang of guilt as he realised she’d been a much better leader than him these last few days, and pushed it down as he walked up to her. Her head quickly turned in his direction as he came closer and he saw her eyes widen slightly as her gaze landed on him, before she jumped up and hurried towards him.

She saw through his façade, he knew.

The men’s eyes followed her movement towards Griffith and remained locked onto the two of them when she stopped in front of him.

“I apologise for my absence, Casca.”

She waved it away. “Oh, don’t worry about it, really. I’m sure it must’ve been exhausting to constantly be in charge, definitely lately.”

Griffith gave her a tight smile. Evading her gaze, he lowered his voice when he spoke next, as to not be overheard. This was a difficult task, as his return after his brief leave had made him the target of the men their understimulated minds’ attention in this slow night.

“Would you be able to tell me…where Guts is?”

He felt his resolve weaken somewhere in the middle of asking the question, causing him to hesitate. How unlike himself.

Casca’s gaze had something of concern and something of unreadability as she frowned slightly.

“He’s retired to his tent. Why?”

Internally, Griffith felt himself reaching for that information to use as an excuse not to go to Guts. He straightened. “Nothing worthy of your concern, don’t worry. I was simply wondering.”

He was about to change the subject to something more pragmatic as Casca lightly grazed his upper arm with her hand, her frown still very much present.

“Griffith-” The sound of his name was pushed out of her, not without struggle. Caught in the middle of trying to physically turn away, he turned back to look at her, questioning.

She looked him in the eyes with a certain gravity, impossible to dismiss.

“Could I…speak to you? Somewhere more private?”

This was the wrong way to word it. Though, there really would be no better way to do so. The men in their vicinity immediately broke into not so soft murmured conversations amongst each other, no doubt completely misunderstanding Casca’s intentions and the situation as a whole. On the outside, Griffith chose to ignore them. On the inside, the gnawing feeling returned with renewed fervour.

“Very well,” he said, turning slightly into the direction opposite to the one whence he came from, motioning for Casca to follow him, waiting for her answer. She nodded and they went on their way, leaving the men who were busy inventing new, albeit smothered, whistling tunes in their wake.

As they reached a part of the camp Griffith deemed decently deserted, he stopped and turned to her, idly wondering what this would be about. She looked down at the trodden grass beneath her feet, the blades black and dull in the weak moonlight.

“What did you want to discuss?” Griffith encouraged her to speak. He felt exhaustion creep up his body. She looked up at him, then, silent determination painted across her features.

“What did you talk about with Guts?”

Sisyphus dropped his rock inside Griffith’s stomach. He could not catch the surprise quick enough, flashing in his eyes as he felt it tumble down. Casca caught him in a rare moment of unarm, but he recovered swiftly as he felt distrust creep up the hill within instead.

“What did he tell you?” he retorted with a question, knowing Casca wouldn't appreciate it, but at the moment he could not care less.

Casca’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing, so I am asking you.” Her hands went to her hips as she spoke. Suspicion was hers now, too. Griffith let out a deep breath, breaking eye contact to form a reply. “We had a disagreement. It is of no matter, Casca.”

“A disagreement,” Casca repeated, looking at him with an unreadable expression. Griffith kept himself steeled as Casca stayed silent for a while, her eyes roaming his face for more information. After a little while, she sighed and dropped her hands to her sides as she looked away. “I hope you won’t feel the need to lie to me more often after this, Griffith, but this is not good. Not for my trust in you, nor that of the Band, you know? I’ll let it slide for now, but please know, you can trust me. Have I not followed you all this time?”

Griffith looked down at her and felt a little nostalgic. How long had it been now, since he saved her from her presumed fate? She’d grown into a strong woman now, a more than competent leader, as he was reminded just earlier this evening. Before, she would in no universe have confronted him on matters such as these, or at least not with such resolve. And now he was being held responsible for his actions by her. Her growth was admirable, sure, but he had long felt irritation take hold as she had started getting involved in his affairs with Guts. He forced a little smile to assure her. “You’ve been incredibly loyal, Casca, and for that I thank you. This problem will simply resolve itself soon enough, which is why I won’t bother you with it, is all.” Casca returned his smile at that, her gaze soft. This time, as it always had done before, her admiration of him won over her healthy scepticism, but he knew that he would not be able to rely on this to be fact in the future. She’d become too strong, too much of her own person for this to persist.

She stepped aside, clearing the way to the tents of the higher ranking members, where she, he and Griffith each had their individual tents. He nodded in gratitude and walked past, feeling her eyes digging into his back as he weaved his way through the tents towards Guts’. Arriving at the tarp which separated him and Guts’ (presumably) sleeping form, he paused, considering whether he should call out first or just peek inside in askance. Standing beside the tent’s canvas, he tried to listen for the steady rhythm of breathing one would normally hear when someone was deep asleep, when a peculiar sound shook him from uncharacteristic insecurity, coming from behind the tarp. It took a moment for Griffith’s mind to wordlessly register it as fearful whimpering and irregular breathing. Concern put its talons into his heart, and he stepped inside.

“Guts?”

•

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking, or rather, limping, but he knew that his body, now returned to its state sometime before his metamorphosis, was spent. He’d quickly found out that the tendons of his legs were luckily not cut, and that he still possessed his tongue, estimating this version of his body to be from about the first couple of months of his stay down in the depths of the tower. He’d been following the line of the wine-faced sea, where the water met the shore of gore and innards, yet no exit nor end to this hell was in sight. His throat was dry and rough, and his eyes felt as heavy as the rest of his body as he unwillingly sat down, feeling bones dig into his skin underneath him. He sat facing the sea, mulling over his options.

“Nothing but a cage.” The voice was light and easy.

Griffith turned his head slowly to the sound, his surprise unmasked as he looked at the person with wide eyes. “What?” His throat was far too dry for conversation, but he managed.

“A dream. In the end, it’s nothing but a cage.”

Griffith scoffed at the child sitting next to him, turning his head away from them.

“You know nothing.”

The child’s eyes stayed trained on his face, wide yet neutral. “I know all. It’s engraved in our bones.”

Griffith looked at his hands, pointedly avoiding focusing his gaze on the corpses underneath them.

The child leaned in. “You still want him. Now that you’ve had a taste of what your dream could give you, you know which one you’d rather have, don’t you?”

A silence fell, the only sound being that of the waves of blood red water lapping at the shore of the land made of human –and animal– matter.

“It’s too late.”

From the corner of his eye he saw the child tilt their head. “It is?”

“You don’t understand the gravity of this situation. I can’t be absolved.”

The child directed their gaze to their feet, legs stretched out in front of them. “Maybe not.”

They wiggled their toes before continuing. “Does it matter?”

His sudden awareness of the deep breath that left him was surprising. “It matters most.”

Their face turned once again to look at Griffith’s.“Does it matter most to him?”

Griffith’s mouth felt bitter. He shifted a little to look down at the child. Their bright eyes reminded him of something to switch the subject to.

“Don’t you want your mother?”

The child hummed. “I do, but she’s always where he is, too. So, I think solving your issue would not be going out of my way much.”

Griffith was silent for a little while, thinking. “What are you? You’re too precocious.”

“I don’t think I’m anything out of the ordinary. Not for our world.”

Griffith knew what he meant, yet in his current form he felt as human as he did before the sacrifice. His limbs were as burdensome as they were in that puddle; there was no way this was his rebirthed body.

“I think he’ll kill me.” The admission’s touch felt cold on his tongue.

“He wants to.”

At the swift reply Griffith looked to the child.

“How do you know?”

They looked at him from the corner of their eye. “I’ve visited. His soul is easy to read, if I go beyond the flesh. Which I did.” The last part was added with a childly lilt. One of the rare showances of youth in the child’s behaviour, Griffith noted.

Griffith fiddled with a lock of his hair, regarding the curve, softer than before he awoke here.

“I have no say. If he wants me gone and that gives him closure, let it be.”

“I have say,” the child said, tone strong.

Griffith looked over a couple of blood-stained strands in his hand. “...Is there a way for me to return your body to you?”

“It is mine?” The question was voiced in a way that did not imply the child did not know the body was theirs. They did.

“Is there a way for me to…go, without affecting you negatively?” Griffith was a good diplomat, yet it took effort to form the words.

“I don’t know. You’re the adult here.” The child put their hands down behind them and leaned back, looking up at the sky.

“Don’t pull that now. You know as much, if not more, about life than I do.”

The child dismissed that with a hum, before continuing. “You are focusing on the wrong thing. What I meant is that he wants to kill you. Not that he will.”

Griffith pulled blood from his hair before whipping his head around to face the child again at that.

“Surely he will.” Anger laced his tone.

“How are you certain? You have not been around him for how long?” The child evidently bore Casca’s unrelenting character.

Guilt swirled in his gut as Griffith swallowed, going back to pulling dried blood from his ends.

“I don’t know. Time passes differently.”

��Well,” the child got up, though even standing straight they did not tower over Griffith by much. “I know. I was there just the other day. Rage can only keep a man going for so long. He won’t kill you. Might attack, though. Come,” they reached out their tiny hand.

“That does not sound reassuring.” Despite his doubt, Griffith took it, though still relying on most of his own remaining strength to get up. The child adjusted their hand, but did not let go of Griffith as they looked out in front of them, scanning the landscape. “It does not have to be with how you ideally would love to die at his hands, I think. I won’t let you, though. I’m too young to die in such a purposeless fight.”

Griffith grimaced. “Ignoring the logistics of you trying to go up against a full-grown adult who mauled legions of soldiers for a living, where are we going?”

The child’s eyes were blank as they simply replied, “we’re leaving.”

•

The tent was dark inside, but with the meagre amount of light spilling from the torches outside Griffith managed to find the lamp inside and light it. Guts was heaving and bathed in a pool of his own sweat, yet his eyes were still closed as he tossed on the pallet. Griffith sat on the edge, outside of the range of his thrashing legs as he put his hands on Guts’ shoulders with reasonable pressure, trying to wake him. “Guts, wake up. You’re having a nightmare,” Griffith frowned as he looked down at him, shaking his shoulders slightly. A fist swung in the direction of his face, but with his own hands preoccupied he was not quick enough to dodge entirely, its contact with his cheekbone harsh and unforgiving as he felt himself cant to the right, forced by the impact.

The very real collision of his fist with something very solid seemed to finally awaken Guts, and he shot up, confused as to what happened. His eyes focused on the hunched figure sitting by the bedside, hand held up to their cheek.

“Griffith?” he asked, as he managed to discern the long, wavy hair in the dimly lit space. An eye peeked from behind the curtain of ruffled hair to look at him, surprise evident. “Guts,” he said as he dropped his hand to face him fully. The angry red-purple blooming on his cheek was hard to miss, even in weak lamplight. “Wh-what happened?” he blurted, hands moving to help, but stopping awkwardly mid-air. Griffith’s gaze slid to his hands, but he said nothing of it. “You were having a nightmare,” he said simply. Guts cussed. “Fuck, fuck, I hit you? Shit, I’m sorry, Griffith. You have- We have to treat it.” His hands flew hurriedly back and forth between the space in front of Griffith’s injury and the place where he presumably kept his first aid equipment. Griffith kept his face neutral as he caught one of Guts’ arms mid-air, making him still as he looked at Griffith in surprise.

“No need. I’ll take care of it later.” Guts’ eyes evaded his as he gathered himself, but Griffith’s gaze was unyielding, his hand still clamped around Guts' arm. “You’d better not wait. It’ll be worse if you leave it now, Griffith.” He gently shook off his hand and moved to sit in front of the trunk to the side of the bed, rummaging inside before pulling out a rag. Griffith looked at him quietly.

“Does it happen often?”

Guts paused. “What do you mean?” He did not turn his head to look at him.

“The nightmares. Is it nightly?”

Guts’ movements resumed, albeit reluctantly, as he took out a little box along with the rag, before turning to the carafe with cool water and wetting the rag.

“I don’t keep track,” he said after a while. He turned back to Griffith then, but his eyes were trained on the cloth in his hands until the very last moment, when it became necessary to at least look at what he was doing as he lifted the damp rag to Griffith’s cheek.

“You’re lying,” Griffith said as he looked up at Guts’ face, internally mapping all of the scars marring his face. Guts swallowed. He made a poor liar. Griffith was glad he had kept Guts out of diplomatic affairs with the nobles as much as possible; it would have only made him more self-conscious about his skills within the social department.

“What do you dream of?” he asked as he took over holding the rag to his face while Guts got a vial containing a questionable-looking substance from the box. He put some of the gel-like fluid on his index and middle finger before moving back to apply it to the bruise, nudging Griffith to keep the cloth off for a little. His eyes looked distant as he replied.

“The past, mainly.”

He finished applying the gel and Griffith went to put the rag down before Guts stopped him.

“You have to continue cooling it to prevent more swelling.” He put the vial back in the box and went back to the chest to put everything back, closing the trunk’s lid as Griffith begrudgingly went back to holding the cloth to his face. Guts stood still in front of the trunk, back facing Griffith, seemingly thinking about what to do as he clenched and unclenched his hands. Griffith eyed him in silence.

“Why are you here?”

It came out along with a sigh, his shoulders sagging slightly. A short silence fell. Griffith’s gaze did not stray from Guts’ back.

“I wanted to apologise.”

Guts turned, surprised. Griffith dropped his hand with the rag and stood up, standing opposite him.

“I’m sorry for what I said today. It is not my business what you and Casca do outside of our jobs, nor how your relationship develops.”

He stepped forward, looking up slightly. “In fact, I suppose your affections for each other might prove more productive in communication during work, so I really shouldn’t hinder it further.”

Guts' eyes were still wide as he looked at Griffith. Griffith squinted his eyes before turning toward the tent’s exit, holding the damp rag back up to his cheek. “I’ll see if we can get you something for your sleep issues. I was thinking rhodiola, if it’s available.”

He opened the flap and was about to walk out when Guts spoke. “Griffith,” he said as he took half a step towards him, hesitant. Griffith turned back and for once Guts did not evade eye contact since they spoke up on the hill. “Thank you,” he said, seeming just as startled by his own candour as Griffith. Griffith stood there for a moment, before giving him a small smile, letting the tarp drop behind him as he turned away again and walked off, the cloth still pressed to his face.

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