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riverboundao3ff · 4 years

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Riverbound Chapter 7

You are THE GUARDIAN, which is kind of unfortunate because you’re currently face down and up to your chest in a medicalizer, which has clamped down on your torso so hard you think you’re going to throw up. It’s not like you’re not grateful for the opportunity to heal your broken ribs, but feeling the machine forcefully fuse the bone and muscle back together is not a pleasant experience. Even advanced technology has its setbacks, you suppose.

“If it hurts too much, we can take a break.”

You look up to Mallek, who is sitting beside you like a very anxious guard dog. Somebody put a big plastic bowl underneath you in case you puke, but you guess he wants to be ready to either hold your hair up like a drunk sorority girl at a party or pull you out of the medicalizer.

You manage a wheezy laugh. “Nah, I don’t feel pain. I’m a robot, remember?”

An unhappy whine rises up from the back of Mallek’s throat, kind of like a stressed cat. “These things can suck even for highbloods. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, dude. I just--” Something clicks back into place in your side, and your vision goes fuzzy for a couple seconds. “Augh. Just need to be uncomfortable for a little while longer. I’m not running around Thrashthrust with broken ribs any longer than, than I have to, oh shit.”

Your stomach rolls like a fighter jet and you let loose into the strategically placed bowl beneath you. Hey look, there’s the grubflakes you ate for breakfast.

Mallek grimaces, and you feel a cool hand rubbing circles into your upper back. You turn your attention towards breathing in and out, in and out, just focusing on the physical contact. It’s only a little after midnight but you’re already exhausted. The painkillers Lynera gave you early in the evening have long since worn off.

“What happened to you?” you hear him whisper.

You force your eyes back open. “Daraya already told you? I got thrown into a tree by a goddamn cholerbear. Nasty sonuva bitch.”

“No, I know that! Why did you disappear for like, half a sweep?” he demanded.

His voice cracks about halfway through, and guilt hits you like a sucker punch. You just want to see him smile again. Granted, you’re looking down at the bowl-o’-puke instead of your friend, but you don’t really have the strength to do anything else.

“Long story short, I got kidnapped. Made some new friends to cope. Escaped, made sure my new friends were okay, and then I came back here. I’ll tell you the full version when I’m not on the verge of passing out,” you explain.

“Kidnapped?” Mallek explodes. “The hell you mean, kidnapped?!”

You wince at the noise and reach out to pat his knee. “Sshhhhhhhh. Shhhh. Calm down. It’s fine now. Be calm.”

His face lights up blue. It’s only then you remember telling that shushing a troll is considered lowkey sexy or something. Whoops.

“I would never leave you on purpose, Mallek,” you say, quickly pulling away before it can get weird. “Or… or anybody. Okay?”

“... Okay,” he mumbles.

You smile encouragingly at him. He grabs your hand and squeezes it. It would have been a really sweet moment, except you’re sweaty and shaky and everything stinks like vomit. You can’t imagine how much it must reek to Mallek and his better sense of smell.

The both of you stay like that for a few more minutes, and then the medicalizer goes off with a sharp buzz and releases your torso from its clamps. You immediately inhale as much as you possibly can, groaning with relief when there was no more stabbing pain. There’s still a bit of soreness; a medicalizer can only do so much for bruising, but by all the horrorterrors have you missed breathing like a regular person.

“How’s it feel?” Mallek asks. You can feel the anxiety coming off him in waves.

“So much better.” You’d fall asleep right there and then if he gave you the chance, but you feel him gently grab your hands and pull you out of the medicalizer. A pair of strong arms lift you up, carry you a short distance away, and then set you back down on a sofa.

You accidentally let out a squeak when you feel a chilly finger poke your stitches.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, you’re good. You’re just cold.”

Mallek huffs and touches the scarred-over gash again. “The medicalizer took care of this big wound right here, but the stitches need to come out. I don’t know how, though.”

The fun never ends. “Lanque did ‘em.”

“I’ll go get him. Be right back,” he promises. You hear him jump to his feet and leave the room, the door creaking slightly on his way out. Downstairs, you can hear your friends discussing something, most likely Tyzias and Daraya cooking up a crazy new plan for the rebellion.

You can’t wait to join them and help save the planet. Vriska’s demand that you return in ten nights is a constant reminder of what you came here to do, but it also makes you nervous about the inevitable teleporting you’ll need to do. What if you messed up and ended up somewhere you shouldn’t? Causing a paradox wouldn’t just screw up your mission, it could ruin the fabric of reality. That fear kept you from so much as doing a measly little jump down the mountainside when you left the caverns.

Having powers was handy, sure, but sometimes it made everything, like, a thousand times more stressful than it actually had to be.

The thumping of footsteps up the stairs gives you the distraction you need to calm down. You crack open an eye in time to see Mallek and Lanque striding in.

“Hey,” you croak.

“Damn, Adalov, did you have it up in the highest setting?” Lanque mutters, turning from you to Mallek with his arms crossed. He doesn’t look very happy with what he sees.

“Medicalizers are made for trolls, not aliens,” Mallek shoots back. “You know they hurt.”

“That thing was old when you let me use it.”

“I’m sorry, did you know any other highbloods with top-notch medicalizers that could do that surgery you wanted? I don’t think so, fucker.”

“Boys, can we save the pitch stuff for later? I want these stitches out so I don’t have to keep laying around like a dead body,” you growl.

Mallek and Lanque glance back at you, both looking a little sheepish, before Mallek slinks away to sit down at your feet while muttering something about never being pitch for pretentious assholes who can’t even wear their jackets right. Lanque messes around with a few first aid kits on the shelf beside the medicalizer before finding what he’s looking for-- a small scalpel and a pair of tweezers.

“Alright, you know the drill. Off with the sports bra,” he orders.

You groan but obey, pausing with your hand through one of the straps when you notice another pair of wide eyes on you. “Mallek. Turn around, my guy.”

A very interesting squeaky noise escapes Mallek’s chest before he turns around and all but slithers over the armrest he was leaning on. You hear him hit the floor with a thump. Lanque rolls his eyes.

“You two know each other?” you ask as you flip over to lay on your stomach.

“We’ve met a few times, yes,” Lanque confirms, kneeling down to start picking at the stitches with the scalpel. The way he says it makes you suspect there was a lot more to the story than he was letting on. “Have you already told Mallek everything?”

That was Lanque’s way of saying “Let’s change the subject”, so you let it go. “Not… everything. Are you listening, Mallek?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, because I only want to explain this once. Basically, the multiverse is a whole lot more complicated than anybody knows, and there are a lot of… powerful beings out there that like to meddle. Like, with timelines, and universes, and that kind of stuff. Are you following me?”

“I… okay?”

“So basically, this fucker called Doc Scratch is one of these god things, and he was using me to control his timeline… area… whatever. That’s why I was running around Alternia before I left, because I guess I had to help bring certain people together for the timeline to work? I don’t know. Anyways, he kidnaps me when he’s done making me do his business and makes me read this fucked up comic in his own fucked up dimension, which is also on one of your moons. Long story short, the comic’s about some other friends I made and the shit they get into in another timeline. Eventually I manage to escape from Doc Scratch with only moderate trauma. Yay, me. How are we doing so far?”

You can’t see him, which is probably a good thing. “You… the multiverse and the… okay, sure. Why not.”

“I end up on Alternia again, but in the future, and then Earth, which is my home planet. Well, not that exact version of Earth, but whatever. I end up befriending all these kids and try to help them lead better lives than they would originally in this other timeline where they all play a game that destroys the universe. I should also mention that Doc Scratch somehow wiped my memories before I escaped, so until I meet this cool chick called Aradia I… had completely forgotten about you guys.” You swallow back the lump in your throat and try to focus on Lanque pulling out your stitches. It stings.

“The last kid I made friends with was this boy called Dirk. Good kid. So we’re hanging out, and this other version of Dirk rocks up from another universe, and this bastard is a kind of god called an… Ultimate Self, I think. He tries to stop me from rewriting the timeline and then tries to kill me or whatever. I get away from him and manage to…” Crap, how do you explain this part without telling your friends you created an entire universe? “I get him to go home and leave me and the kids alone. He can’t hurt us if he’s in his own universe. After all of that I wanted to come back to see you guys again. So I did.”

Like before, you don’t mention the Director, or the little showdown between you, her, and Ultimate Dirk in Doc Scratch’s mansion. You definitely don’t tell them you’re here to help them win the rebellion. You remind yourself you’re not lying to them, you’re just… not telling them everything. To protect them.

Yeah.

“What worries me is this Scratch character,” Lanque mutters. “You said that Ultimate Self god went back to his own universe, but if Scratch still has influence over our reality…”

“I… have no idea about Scratch,” you say truthfully.

“What is he, exactly?”

You release a long sigh. “Every planet with intelligent life has a thing called a First Guardian to guide it and its people to their destinies. Timelines can have Guardians too, I think? I know that sometimes entire universes have Guardians. They keep time and space in order, basically.”

“... If this universe has a First Guardian, why can’t it go beat Scratch’s ass?” Mallek jokes.

It’s a good question, and you know he’s just trying to lighten the mood, but it still fills you with misery, anger, and a fear so powerful you almost start shaking. If… when you meet Scratch again, what will you do? Would you be able to fight him? Protect your friends from him?

If your friends knew who you really are, would they still care about you?

“That’s something I would love to see, believe me,” you manage to say.

“I’m so sorry that all of that happened to you. It’s so fucked up,” Mallek says hoarsely. “I was so pissed that you were gone. I just spent six perigees of my life thinking one of the best friends I ever had was dead and I didn’t even stop to consider that they might be having it even worse.”

“It’s not your fault. Grief makes people do and feel weird shit,” you assure him. You’re trying not to cry yourself, because you’re half-naked with a super hot guy pulling out your stitches and another hot guy hiding behind the sofa. Your life is a lot of things but boring is not one of them.

Your pain tolerance must be through the roof by now, because you don’t even feel it when Lanque pulls out the last couple threads. “All done.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “Thanks, Lanque.”

He pats your back. “Come join us downstairs when you’re ready. Tyzias has something I think you’d be interested in.”

Your tiredness instantly fades away. “Oh?”

“You can’t be serious, Bombyx. They’re still recovering,” Mallek protests.

“Then get off your privileged highblood ass and come with us,” Lanque calls over his shoulder as he saunters out the door.

Mallek yelps and dives back behind the sofa when you hop up to get dressed. Your shirt was slung over the desk chair, which you gladly yank back on over your bra as you start to shiver. Mallek’s place was always pretty chilly since he ran cold, so you’d always have to bundle up a bit when you came over to hang.

“Alright, I’m decent. My pasty white ass won’t blind you anymore,” you tell him.

“You’re more of a really pale… pinkish tawny?” he notes, tossing you your hoodie.

You decide you’d explain the different ethnic and racial categories humans have to him later. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for letting me use the medicalizer.”

“Duh. I don’t let my friends run around with broken ribs,” Mallek snorts. “Yours sure break a lot, though. Maybe I should just stick you back in there from time to time, just in case.”

You pretend to chuck the puke bowl at him and cackle when he instinctively dodges. Once upon a time, you might have told him that human vomit is acidic. Granted, it definitely is; you can feel your throat and tongue burning like a bitch, but you never specified that it wasn’t deadly or anything.

“Just put it in the load gaper!” he begs, and you laugh as you follow him down to the bathroom. You forgot how much fun it was to fuck around with him. Maybe you’d introduce him to Kuprum and Folykl, you just know that the three of them in one room would be the best thing that ever happened. That, or they’d all kill each other. Those kinds of things could be a little difficult to predict with trolls.

The puke bowl gets cleaned with water, soap, and a lot of vigorous scrubbing. Your hands get the same treatment. Once you gulp down some water and splash your face in the sink, you turn, only to realize Mallek is staring at you again. His eyes are much more blue than when you last saw him. He’s an inch or two taller as well.

“... Yeah?” you ask. Did you have vomit on your face? Fuck.

All at once, Mallek wraps you up in a hug that leaves you breathless. You hug him back instinctively, and then really go all in when you feel him shaking ever so slightly against you. He smells like chips and something vaguely smoky.

Neither of you say anything for a while. There’s something incredibly fragile in the air, and it warms you from the inside out and fills you with worry.

“I missed you,” he mumbles into your hair.

“I missed you too. So much.”

“... You don’t have to join in on whatever crazy shit they’re cooking up down there.” He chuckles nervously. “Really. You can just… I dunno. Stay with me, if you want?”

You bump your head against his chest and gently squeeze his arms. “Mallek. The world is going to change, and I want to be a part of it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t want you to die.”

You reach up to gently cup his cheek. “I’ve died before. It’s not so bad, really.”

Mallek leans into the contact, looking at everything but at you. You let yourself be held by him for a little while longer before pulling away. He doesn’t say anything else, but he does follow you down the stairs to the rest of the group.

You grin at Tyzias when she looks up at you, hopeful. “So whose lives are we gonna ruin tonight?”

#hiveswap #Hiveswap Friendsim trolls #homestuck #pesterquest #MSPA reader #The Guardian #riverbound #jadebloods #teals #AND MALLEK #lol

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