#something something images get stuck in ur brain and make u sick

[technicolorxsn]

okay I've figured out the correlation between improved quality of life/mental health and decreased art, it's fucking time because of course it's time

[choptop-sawyer]

Hi again 😎💫 im here to dig at ur brain again bcs i. M. Aaa sorry i just love ur stuff but. I have this kinda rly specific storyline type hc area and I'd love to hear any hcs you might get from it if its at all jr thing. But um I keep sometimes thinking back to the idea of kinda, vaguely growing up in the same area as the Sawyers, being childhood friends (and being stupid 2gether, running arount the countryside, ditching school & playing in corn fields) -

But then having to leave in your late teens to school / whatever (I mean 😎 my sappy ass also thinks abt mutual pining w Bobby but you know...... nearly unrelated.......)

Then, later on (Bobbys now Chop Top, Nubbins is..... dead I guess but also >:( maybe not, the family is up to being a mess etc) returning to town to take a break from work or whatever. N meeting up w the family again, i mean, oblivious to the bullshit they get up to but.... yk

This is a bit rambly i should probs have waited to sleep but I can't get the thought of returning to the Sawyer door wearing Bobbys tie dye sweatshirt that hr borrowed u years ago and all the impact of being a former family member bc u were also kind of an outsider or whatever but also the drama of leaving so uwu sksjd

This got so long. All i wanted to ask is: sawyer family headcanons for a childhood friend returning to town after being away for years. Rip.

THANK YOU FOR SENDING THIS god I love the image too of just standing in the doorway,, you're not home, you've changed a little bit, but you still fit into some of the old aspects you know so well they fit you and cover you.

Actually this is great because that fic that I swear exists has pretty much the same premise but!!! I can make this one less tragic than that one. 😎

(This is mostly Chop Top n you centric please don't mind)

Also this timeline is all fucky. I think that as soon as Chop came home from Vietnam the Sawyers had basically uprooted themselves and were living in North Texas because of the... Hardesty incident. But like can we pretend that that never happened they r still there in Newt? Just for this. (Hope you like it!)

Chop Top's Childhood Friend Returns

You don't think you would have turned out the way you did without the Sawyers.

They were the main element of your childhood, a mystery that you had to be a part of. A mystery, because they were closed off. Mistrustful. The sickness of small towns carried to the extreme, because they were mostly alone. The loneliness made them more miserable, the misery made them more isolated. A cycle, a legacy.

So it was a a miracle that you were even allowed to be apart of some of it, but you attribute that miracle to Bobby.

He seemed to think you were as much of mystery as what you thought the Sawyers were. Two kids looking through a small window into another world. But he liked that. He liked that you were something different, something new. From beyond that small world of loneliness that lived in the house.

You learned quickly that he had a desire for anything beyond that world. So he'd invite you out with him, when you were kids, to run free in the tall grass, when you got older, to drive with him to places unknown. He had a knack for finding these odd places, and he always brought you along with the music cranked up loud on the radio.

Bobby told you many times that he wanted to see the world. He had this lust for life that went beyond the restlessness of the young. He also said that he wanted to bring you along with him when he saw the world. You didn't ever mention how that always made your heart skip a beat when he said that.

Maybe you should have. But the past is the past and you can't change that.

You knew the other Sawyers too, but Bobby tended to avoid them sometimes. But occasionally, you got to hang out with them.

Nubbins was an enigma. You didn't think Nubbins was his real name. But that's the only one you heard from him, but the name situation was the least confusing thing. He was the most open person you knew. And yet you couldn't understand him, and decided at some point that you wouldn't ever. But he was fun. His energy was infectious, if he was filled with joy, you couldn't help but laugh with him too. That was Nubbins, so absent of any purposeful deceit that he was almost a mirror, you saw yourself around him, sometimes it was uncomfortable, but other times it was fun.

Bubba was the opposite. He seemed to be legitimately wary of you. Bobby once told you that Bubba didn't like to leave the house, ever. He stayed and did the chores. You wondered if he minded, being stuck with all the chores but Bobby said he didn't. It was comforting for him. Always having something set to do. You only saw him once. Nubbins had made him tag along when he needed him to hang some things from a tree. Bones from indeterminate animals, a clock with a nail through it. You don't think Nubbins actually needed Bubba to reach the branches (he climbed pretty well) but he just wanted his little brother to see his work. Bubba didn't make eye contact with you the entire time. He was wholly focused on his task of helping Nubbins. But he was gentle when he helped his brother, careful, and for that you liked him.

Drayton was... well. He was the one Bobby argued with the most. He was his brother, but with how much age between the two, it was almost hard to believe sometimes. Drayton was the one that everybody in Newt knew the most. People liked him well enough, but they said he was odd behind his back. He knew that. You don't think he trusted anything outside the insular world he and his family had existed in for years, and was at odds with Bobby because he didn't get why Bobby wanted anything to do with the world outside.

Oftentimes you would see Bobby after he and Drayton got into it. He'd be fuming, but he'd smile when he saw you. You'd leave with him whenever he came to you. These adventures were the most fun you had when you were there.

The other times you'd go off were when he'd convince you to skip school. Bobby never went himself. He didn't get the idea of all those kids sitting in classrooms for hours, doing nothing but writing and listening. Why do that when you can find things out for yourself? Get into some trouble? In his mind, he was saving you from a very boring thing.

You two knew the area around Newt well. The fields and the flat expanses were the best kind of playground. Your dreams were still set in them. A kind of sunshine filled melancholy.

Bobby told you things in the grass. His dreams yes, but his own thoughts. On music, on late night radio, on movies, on you. He perhaps thought of you as wonderful as voices on the radio, stars on the screen. He never told you that though. But your name was never far from his mouth when Bobby talked about the things he loved.

You and him loved each other as much as two kids who didn't know how to could. He was always on your mind now, with not much tangible objects to remember him with. A photograph taken by Nubbins, your faces blurred because you were laughing. A button, the pin on the back bent. A sweatshirt, which he tie dyed himself, and gave to you one night. The colors were faded. You never did get to return it.

The years away did nothing to lessen thoughts of him. No, they just blurred all together now, and the stream of the sunshine filled melancholy was almost endless. You needed a break. There was only one place you could think of that could help you with that.

So you came back. All things led back to this place eventually. Newt was dying, or dead. Didn't you see somewhere that when a ship went down, it took everything with it? You didn't want to stay for long. But you had to see all of them, you had to know that they were all not these strange figures you had dreamt up.

You went right to the house. You'd never actually been allowed inside, Bobby just always said something along the lines of 'Grandma and Grandpa are napping upstairs' or 'there's a mess' (never mind that he could care less usually about messes.) But you figured he had had a good reason. Maybe he was embarrassed.

When you knocked on the door, your heart was pounding. And that was all. Nothing happened, no indication that anyone was there. You waited, the sweatshirt was too hot but you didn't want to take it off.

Maybe you should come back another time. You were just about to turn around and leave when the door burst open, almost whacking you in the face. And there (you couldn't believe your eyes you couldn't this was a dream) he was.

Bobby had a hammer raised over his head, grinning, he was poised to swing it down, but then he saw you and he felt as if he was in a dream too.

It's been so long. He thought he made you up, a dream to carry him through misery, and you looked the part, even as you stood before him on the doorway. The light of the setting sun shone behind you, heat waves shimmered in the dusk, and you... you.

Facing each other, you stood, just staring. Over head the sky grew colorful, in the fields the grass whispered in the wind. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Bobby dropped the hammer and grabbed for your face, and he held it, fingers digging in so tight it hurt.

"H-hey you." He said, and fell to his knees, releasing your face. You numbly touched the marks his fingers left. Bobby still looked like a man who had seen a ghost.

You called his name, and his eyes looked lost, like he hadn't heard it in a long time. He looked up at you, and you could really get a good look at him. His face was leaner, he looked sickly and wiry, but his eyes were just as you remembered. You sank down to the porch to sit with him.

"Fuck... FUCK I didn't... I- I thought ya'd forgotten all about me... uh.. uhm. Fuck! I mean, r-really! Turnin' up out of the blue like you're some kinda... ghost or whatever... WHOA man... like, ya here to return m-my, my sweatshirt? You're wearin' it, you can keep it! You look better in it anyway... heh, fuck." He rambled on and on, hands tensing and twitching as if they were moving to touch you again, just to reaffirm your existence. Did he know how glad you were to see him? Did he know that you hadn't felt right for the longest time being away?

You forgot all about the sweatshirt, the hammer he had raised with a sadistic grin. You reached out and held one of his twitching hands, and he stilled and stopped talking. There was a peace now.

It didn't seem possible for your heart to feel this full. But it was. And by god, if this wasn't the best decision you made in your life to visit your old hometown, if only just for this moment.

Bobby stood, with your hand still in his, pulling you up. He smiled at you, and you knew you still loved him, and in your deepest heart, you knew he loved you too.

But this time around, maybe you and him could love each other right.

[butchford]

All 25 for Yuno please and thank you

Does this for rewrite Yuno so canon Yuno actually <3

1) Something this character is truly proud of.

Coming back from the grave she’s dug herself quite literally like after all the killing and suffering she’s managed to make good friends who genuinely care about her more than her shitty parents ever did

2) Who they want to please the most.

To begin with it was Yuki simply because Yuki was Just Sitting There and acknowledged Yuno as a human capable of emotion and thought but god Yuno needed that to the point where she fixated on his existence as means of coping with her own. Nowadays she just wants her gfs Mao and Hinata to be happy though <3

3) Who depends on them.

Their entire friend group depends on her experience and expertise in the game to survive as well as to work out a plan but afterwards? They still depend on her in a way of “you’re my friend and I care about you. Please show me how to properly use this knife so I can idk make a wolf carving or something :]” like they love her and Need her to be happy so they try really hard to remind her that her skills are still useful when they’re not fighting for their lives

4) What they would do if they had one month to live.

Yuno I think would isolate herself like she’d go “I’ve caused enough pain; it’s better for them just to think I finally ran off” but within a day Hinata would track her down and make her fess up and the rest of the month would be spent doing whatever Yuno had haphazardly jotted down onto her bucket list as advised by Aru

5) A cherished personal belonging.

Mao got her a stuffed animal & Hinata won her one at the fair once and neither of them leave her bedside because while her awful parents may have been rich they’d never bothered to buy her anything of comfort or out of genuine love so by god she clings to both of those stuffed animals for dear life every night that Mao and Hinata don’t share her bed

6) Something they lost, but would love to have back

Yuno never really had parents who loved her but she’d love to have a pair

7) This character’s favorite character

Yuno thinks Shiori rgu is Neat and then she’s like ahaha wait. Wait.

8) What kind of car they would drive.

Hm i don’t think Yuno would be a driving for the hell of it type but the honest answer to this is whatever is easiest to hotwire

9) What calms them when they are upset.

Yuno needs one of her gfs to stroke her hair and just. Not ask any questions for a little while

10) How they deal with pain.

Yuno still tries to completely ignore it despite her intentions to address it but Hinata will see her going a little Too Apeshit on the punching bag and then gently pressure her into admitting she’s going through Something before getting the words out of her mouth through the wall her brains created around her ability to be honest

11) This character’s favorite piece or pieces of clothing.

Mao’s mom knitted her a pink sweater and she loves it so so much because it’s physical proof of the fact she is loved and also it’s Pink

12) How they sleep.

Yuno cannot sleep unless she has the aforementioned stuffed animals &/or her gfs at her side or she’s tired/lost enough blood to just pass the fuck out. 99% of the sleep she does manage to get is haunted by bad memories intrusive thoughts and other brands of nightmares

13) What kind of parent they would be.

I think given the right amount of time to process what was done to her she could be a good parent because she wouldn’t wish what was done to her on anyone but she would just be relatively Awkward around kids despite always having candy on her when she visits any of her friends with kids like Yuno Gasai definitely does Try

14) How they did in school

Yuno struggles in school from being Out Of It thanks to her abusive parents for a considerable portion of it but she tries really hard to catch up and Hinata Mao and even Aru who doesn’t care for school themself will help her should she ask

15) What cologne or perfume they would use

Yuno sees cotton candy anything and goes “yooo fuckin sick :)”

16) Their sexuality

Lesbian. <3

17) What they’d sing at karaoke

Yuno would either break the fourth wall and sing blood teller or sing Magia like she just loves baller eds about love and death

18) Special talents they have

Yuno is Very Good with nearly every weapon you can imagine but also she can paint really well like it’s always abstract but god she can convey emotion extremely well through images

19) When they feel safest

Lying in the sun next to Mao and Hinata in Hinata’s dad’s old mansion like she is simply at peace in the warmth of the sun with only better days ahead of her..

20) Household chore they hate the most

Yuno hates having to clean her room because any evidence that she’s Lived somewhere without having to run and in comfort is something that she finds comfort in

21) Their fondest childhood memory

Minene shows Yuno girlsgogames dot com one day when she learns about how shitty Yuno’s parents were after the killing game’s passed and it’s not much but Yuno finds great solace in it

22) How they spend their money.

Yuno loves food like she will see cotton candy or cake or pocky and she’ll go “that’s it that’s going in the cart!” Also Yuno loves stuffed animals like she’ll buy at least one a month for her room and she’ll always give one to Mao and Hinata when the opportunity presents itself. Also she’ll see a pink gun and go el oh el Minene would u mind lending me ur- wait ur wanted internationally. Nishijima would u mind lending me ur id

23) What kind of alcohol they drink

Yuno just thinks alcohol is disgusting

24) What they wish they could change about themselves

Yuno wishes she could’ve figured out a Lot about herself sooner than she did like she wishes so badly she could’ve known the feeling in the pit of her stomachs wasn’t love it was fear for her life and the life of the single person she clung to for so long. She also desperately wishes she hadn’t taken so many lives that would’ve been fine had she not touched them.

25) What other people wish they could change about them

Yuno’s found family wishes that Yuno would stop being so hard on herself like yes she murdered many people but also her own parents stuck her in a cage she then put them in there and let them die before she was thrown into a killing game which she originally won and then repeated after she found out that she couldn’t bring people back from the dead then killed an alternate version of herself and she is 14.

[fallout-snippets]

Hello it me again, I L O V E your longer reacts and ur writing is just amazing. I would die if u did the interested! companions (+Deacon) reacting to sole almost dying but barely surviving like they get knocked out or have a really bad injury and go into surgery and wake up alright (totally up to u!) And it just being real angsty and sad. Sorry if this is a lil confusing I hope you have fun with this prompt and thank u for reading anyway. 💕

(sorry if im taking too many liberties and artistic choices with the replies but i want to make them unique, also kinda lost wind at the end cause theyre kinda long)

Cait is a furious mess in the waiting room, refusing to leave until she can see Sole again. It had just been a lucky shot by a lucking fucking raider but it’s enough to turn everything upside down and Cait wishes she hadn’t had to pick up Sole and run the hell out of there and instead could give that raider the beating of a lifetime. To soothe her nerve she plans out how to track them down and imagines what she’ll do to them.

It takes a few hours of silence from the operating room until the doctor finally emerges and she’s close to wrestling the poor guy down to ask what took so long but she keeps her cool, the way Sole told her to. It seems that Sole will recover without any lasting injuries but he requests that she lets them rest which she scoffs at, and pushes back the man so she can see them.

The doctor obviously can’t convince her to leave and instead resigns to at least getting her a chair. Cait spends the rest of the night and day sitting next to Sole, sobbing into their sheets when she knows they won’t notice. She holds their hand, feels their warmth and lets that be the thing that calms her down.

Once Sole wakes up though, she won’t be so vulnerable. They’re going to get an earful from her about being so careless and she’ll make sure they know that’s not going to fucking happen again.

Curie regrets becoming a human when she’s alone in the field with a Sole that might be bleeding out infront of her. She hates how her hands shake, how sickly cold she feels and how warm their blood feels on her hands as she tries to put pressure on the wound.

Her brain switches from a logical approach to a terrified one, between what she can do and has to do and what might happen if she does it wrong and she wishes she still had a stone cold approach to an injured patient. Instead it’s Sole. She might lose them for real and she feels a lump in her throat grow.

Thankfully Sole has passed out, for better or worse, and Curie puts a cloth over their face to make them anonymous. She brings out an emergency toolkit and some stimpaks and forces a deep breath. It takes a great mental strength to force her fear away so that she can get to work but soon she focuses only on the wound. She makes sure it’s clean, nothings stuck inside and she carefully administers the stimpak inside to out, letting the cellular regeneration slowly close the wound from inside.

Once she’s done she sits down, removes the cloth from their face to wipe her hands but she can’t bring herself to move. She feels sick and nauseous, something she never thought she’d feel doing something as natural as that. When Sole wakes up she’ll force herself to come back but for now she just sits and tries not to think about her hands inside Soles abdomen with their life hanging on a thread.

Danse doesn’t notice anything wrong at first. He’s been trained to take the situation seriously and never celebrate until they’re safe home again but it’s been a while since he’s been a soldier and it’s hard not to celebrate around Sole. So he doesn’t notice that not everyone is dead.

Sole makes a remark about the awful outfit the dead man infront of them has on and Danse chuckles and turns around to relieve the other man of his ammunition. He doesn’t hear the grunts of a survivor and he doesn’t hear them approaching but he hears the crunch of a blunt object connecting with Soles scalp. It echoes for weeks afterwards.

He quickly eliminates the threat but Sole has already slumped together on the floor, blood quickly pooling beneath them and he has never been this scared before. He does what he can to… keep the pieces together and he picks them up to bring them back somewhere safe. They don’t wake up for a while.

It’s not until Sole slowly blinks their eyes open in the safety of their home that he finally allows himself to cry. He sobs through an apology, begs them to please forgive him, while they softly comb his hair with their fingers, waiting to figure out what happened.

Deacon is the king of pranking and is pleased to have finally found a worthy opponent in Sole. It can range from placing a whopee cushion under their seat to staging a lovers spat in a full bar and he is living for it. So when Sole is dramatically complaining about the burning heat he just laughs and tells them to cool off.

With a smirk they toss him their jacket and pack and dive into the waters they’ve been travelling next to and he laughs louder for the sheer drama of it. What a match made in heaven. He waits for Sole to reemerge to splash him down but they dont and instead the surface grows still. Until their body slowly floats to the surface and he prays it’s just another prank.

It could be. Sole knows how to get under his skin. But there’s red leaking into the water from their head and he takes a look into the murky water and finds it filled with large rocks hidden just below. Quickly he throws himself in to pull them out, dragging them onto the dusty road.

The cut on their head isn’t deep and won’t be lethal but they’re unconscious and he’s struggling with what to do. He vaguely remembers how to do CPR and gets started, trying not to lose his shit in the process. He ends up getting water spat in his face but Sole coughing is music to his ears. He allows himself to hold on to their shoulder for a second longer than he needs to before he forces out a laugh.

“Did you cool down?”

Hancock likes being a little reckless, it’s good for the soul. Gets you out of your comfort zone and helps you sharpen up. Plus it’s fun. So Hancock’s not exactly complaining when he takes up with Sole who isn’t afraid of a fight, on the contrary; he downright loves it.

It can range from switching from guns to a fistfight just for the hell of it or batting baseball grenades into a super mutan stronghold just because they can. So when Sole suggests a shortcut from the roof of a three story building to the bus below he doesn’t think much of it. He declines it himself, knowing he doesn’t have it in him to do it but Sole has survived much worse with barely a scratch.

Except he sees them get ready and they leap like a bird ready to take flight but instead of a thud of them landing on the roof he hears glass breaking. He hurries to the ledge and finds Sole in a pile of broken glass and blood, staring at their bloodsoaked hands in shock. Somehow they landed on the sunroof window and fell through the bus.

Suddenly he can’t breathe and he feels ants crawling all over him and he doesn’t care that it’s not even reckless, it’s just stupid, but he throws himself off the edge onto the bus as well. Luckily the wounds are only superficial and Sole recovers quickly with carefully placed stimpaks but he shakes for hours afterwards with the image of a slashed Sole below him. It could’ve been worse, it looked worse, and sometimes he can’t shake the feeling that it was worse and he’s living in a comfort high to cope with it.

MacCready has always been afraid of ferals, even before that happened. It’s knowing they used to be people that terrifies him the most, the idea that there used to be a person inside and now there’s nothing but rot. That they’re just creatures, full of rage and hunger.

Usually when there’s a group of them Sole allows him to fall back and let them deal with it, much to his relief. The sounds they make, the shuffling of their feet on their ground. Everything comes back in vivid detail and he feels sick to his stomach. But this time it’s different. Maybe there’s one too many or maybe Sole is having an off day but they overwhelm them.

He hears Sole screaming as they’re wrestled to the ground, ferals biting and scratching through their clothes to get to their skin. He barely remembers what comes next, in his mind he’s trapped back with Lucy trying to save Duncan but when he comes to again his hands are bloody and torn.

The whole thing comes flooding back and he assumes the worst, reliving his nightmare again but he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. Sole is behind him, standing behind the couch he’s suddenly in, and they’re clearly wounded but alright. He sees bitemarks on them and fights the urge to cry but the tears come anyway. At least this time he could save Sole before they got them.

Piper knows she’s not winning any popularity contests in Diamond City but she’s surprised at how many people seem opposed to Sole specifically. On a good night they’ll be left alone, maybe swap some stories with some random passerby, but more often than not someone has to voice their opinion.

Sole is used to it by now and tries to take it in stride. Theres plenty of drunk idiots at the Dugout Inn and there’s no reason to deal with all of them. This time, however, it doesn’t seem to be enough. Sole turns around to ask them to please leave but the person in question brings out a knife and stabs them in the abdomen.

Piper can’t help but to scream and rush to catch Sole who clutches their stomach and stumbles backwards with blood gushing out from their fingers. The person quickly scatters in the crowd but Piper doesn’t care. She screams for help and luckily people may dislike Sole but not that many dislike them enough to want to see them dead and someone gets a cloth to press on the wound.

Soles spends a few weeks in bed, resting and moaning everytime they turn around in bed and everytime Piper feels a sickening guilt spill over. It could’ve been worse. A knife in your stomach is more often than not lethal. She has to pay more attention, she owes that to Sole. Piper keeps thinking what life would be like if Sole died and everytime it makes her sob into her scarf.

Preston believes in the best of people and that no one is above another. Luckily Sole believes the same. They almost feel like a reward for all the horrible things he’s had to endure and he can’t tell them enough how glad he is they’re with him.

He doesn’t want to imagine the place he’d be in if it hadn’t been for them saving him. But when Sole neglects to tend to a minor wound that ends up infected, it’s all he thinks about. What if this is it? What if the universe is taking back his one good thing, the one glowing ember in the ashes?

Preston doesn’t know how to act. Things seem to move on in the rest of the world, people take care of themselves in the settlements that Sole built, but for Preston nothing is moving. He barely breathes. He sits by their bed and wipes the feversweat from their forehead, he talks to them when they’re in such deep sleep it looks like death.

Will he sit by their grave like this too?

Gage has seen Sole do some pretty fucked up things and come out of it more or less unharmed. It seems like nothing really cuts them deep enough to make a dent which seems perfect for a troublemaker.

Who would’ve known a simple antbite would be enough to make them fall deathly ill and lie in bed for several weeks? Their leg swells up to twice its size and it turns an awful purple shade while a fever rages in their body, making him think for sure that’s that. No coming back from that one.

He doesn’t really know how to feel about it. He hasn’t really cared enough about someone else before and the way he’s feeling now he doesn’t think he ever will. Gage is more angry than anything, but not at Sole. He’s furious that something as inane as a bugbite might take them out when they’ve done so many incredible things normal humans shouldn’t be able to.

But more than that he’s angry to think he might end up alone again. As pathetic as it makes him sound, he needs them. Their comfort, their company… their laughter. He sits outside their room most of the time, unable to face them but unable to leave. All he can do is hope that the chems he’s scavenged are enough.

[dunkalfredo]

Mirage Springs (Home Sweet Home)

The protagonist: a young Gadget the Wolf.

The setting: a time when things were... simpler.

(Infidget, except it's that shared Old Friends AU I have with @theashemarie)

AO3 | FFN

yo yo yo what up im back at it again. I think I've only posted during- and post-war so far???? Yeah I think so. this should be somethin new for yall

warnings warn brief animal violence and also implied/referenced character death

anyways heres wonderwall be sure to like comment and subscribe to my youtube c

Gadget doesn’t dream about his father per say, but a few months out from the accident and the funeral and the beginning of it all his dreams get… unpleasant.

Always traumatic. Disaster, tragedy, bodily harm, his mother, trapped, his own self, broken and immobile. He wakes up with a prancing heart and pains in his neck, like his head was moving but there was resistance, a pillow in the way. Advil never really helps. He pretends it does.

One night, he spends all of two hours asleep, the second dreaming of a feral dog tearing a cat into two with its teeth. He hears the procession of the cat’s screeches so vividly, struggles with the molasses around his bones as he looks around at the others in the room, wondering if he should look outside, out the window at the sources of the screeches and the dying. Eventually, he does, and finds Finn, his best friend, one he hasn’t seen in person for years and only in grainy jpegs on his monitor, wrestling the wrangled parts of the cat from the bared fangs of the dog, horror pulling at his features in strange, uncomfortable shapes.

Gadget wakes up ten minutes before his alarm. He doesn’t shut it off.

It rings a few times, the peaceful, lighthearted marimbas that normally fill Gadget with destructive intent only reminding him of the hours ahead of him, hours undoubtedly to be filled with migraines and a putrid sickness in his stomach.

He stumbles down the stairs with Frankenstein feet, legs that don’t really fit him and feel short and stubby and long and gangly at the same time, legs that stick out from his body at odd angles, bones that grew too fast and in the wrong places. He sees his mom, Helen, in the kitchen, still and focused on the kitchen counter (empty) and he decides to tell her.

“We need to move.”

It’s the rain outside that sets him off. He sees it in the window behind his mother, feels it in his bones like little hammers against his marrow, chipping away bits and pieces with every impact until there’s nothing left to support his innards and his flesh. Rain, obscuring, blinding, slippery. Too wet and too slick for city tires. Too obtrusive to the eyes of a crowded interstate. Too enticing for accidents, for metal cars with disgustingly fragile bodies inside of them.

Gadget wants to get as far from the rain as possible.

Helen maintains that obsessive, hollow gaze at the counter tile, and only nods, mechanical and noncomprehensive. Gadget hums, accepting it for now and deciding that, maybe later, he’ll ask again, when she’s had food and a good night’s rest. He knows she didn’t sleep last night. Her pacing kept him up. He wanted to join her.

He didn’t, continuing to stare at his wall and eventually dreaming of rabid dogs and festering cat corpses.

-

Ultimately, it’s a matter of waiting for the house market to open and for Gadget to finish eighth grade, though perhaps not quite in that order. The where isn’t an issue, because there’s only one place that holds the familiarity they desperately need while also giving them needed, necessary space, and the “how” of the matter is settled with his father’s now liquidated assets.

So, July.

There’s the sad, forlorn, empty husk of Gadget that feels close to nothing about this, but then there’s this small, hopeful spark, created and fueled by a face he hasn’t seen properly since a distant, warm but entirely too fuzzy childhood, connected now only to a username tattooed to the back of his brain. Moving has one big, tangible perk, one that’s not centered on recovery, on death, on rain, and he didn’t realize it was there until he was halfway through listening to his mother speak with the realter on the phone.

A familiar face. A friend.

The revelation only reminds him of the loneliness, but. But. That spark shines a little brighter.

-

In May, they finalize the lease for the new homeowners and work on packing (there’s not much, and Helen has a distressing vastness to her knowledge on quick moving shortcuts; Gadget knows why and has never asked for details. Helen never gave them. It’s better that way).

Gadget’s quick to hop on his laptop as soon as he gets off packing duty, perched on the fat windowsill he used to furnish with pillows and blankets to make a makeshift couch (there’s a word for this sort of window-couch, he knows, but he can’t quite reach back in the recesses of his brain to find it, nor can he find the will or energy to care).

AIM is open and chippering happily when he opens the lid. As soon as the window pops up, he sees Finn’s gargantuan mix of x’s and numerals waiting eagerly for his return.

Gadget’s fingers fly over the keyboard. Mmmmmmmhenlo!!!! finally got the lease signed. were packing right now

He receives immediate whiplash as Finn spams a long, dark block of capital A’s.

Gadget types back, quick and a bit snippy: please don’t break ur a key ull give ur mom a scare

Finn, after hesitation and a guilt that seeps straight into the texts and out of Gadget’s monitor, responds with a single, solemn, h.

thank u, Gadget types.

They launch into quick, idle chatter after that, slowly morphing into something more thoughtful as the hours wear on until Finn sends, after a brief pause: u think ull recognize me?

Gadget’s chest collapses slightly, not quite a sigh but a hefty release of breath regardless. I mean. ive seen pictures but. I dunno

When a quiet, hesitant ‘we’ll see’ flashes across the screen, Gadget flinches, only to force his eyes closed and away from the affronting text. He breathes, in, out, shallow but to a slow count of ten.

It’s just Finn, unsure and insecure and afraid. He’s always worried, Gadget tells himself. He’s paranoid.

But there’s a brief image in his mind of himself looking out at the swarm of bodies in the airport, lugging a suitcase of clothes behind him and a ticket, punched, in his hand, with no one there to greet him.

He doesn’t know if he could handle that.

He doesn’t want to find out.

-

July. Humid in the north, but bone-dry in the south. That should’ve made it better. It didn’t.

Gadget forgot just how heavy the sun felt in Mirage Springs, and in that brief stretch between plane cabin and port entrance, he’s reminded with vivid, visceral clarity just how much he loathes the heat, even if it doesn’t stick to his neck like it did back home. At least, at home, he didn’t worry about blistered feet and heat stroke.

He tries not to take it as a bad omen, as a sign that this was a bad idea, but it sits in the pit of his stomach and grows fetid.

It doesn’t help that he aches, that his knees creak after stuck in artificial, harsh angles for so long, that his ears pop every now and then without warning because the plane was high but the mountains and trees up north were even higher.

He’s hurt, and tired, and nervous, and overall in a sour, worn mood (not helped by the long minutes spent in one security check after another), and there’s little pomp and circumstance when he’s finally out in the open with his meagre luggage behind him and plane ticket crinkled between his fingers.

Then, he sees Finn.

Or, rather, his mother Helen sees Finn, and he only sees Finn after she puts a knowing hand on Gadget’s shoulder and says, “I’ll go back for the rest of the luggage.”

And she leaves, and it’s just him, and Finn (and an entire airport, but that’s unimportant).

Gadget doesn’t know why he ever worried; Finn sticks out like a sore thumb. Not in stature, the shrinking violet he was, but definitely in the black everything and the thick, sturdy, too-hot boots and the long, long, chaos it was so long hair and really, even without all of that, his scar made him look like some rogue mercenary lost in a swarm of unfittingly normal people, loose from the trail of his target and aimless in his search for a way back on.

There’s no warning before Gadget is, in every sense of the word, swept off his feet.

“You’re back!” Finn booms with every ounce of air in his lungs, voice cracking like an egg on a floor but pitch reaching an unnerving deepness for a teen his age. Gadget’s overwhelmed, with all the earth-shaking timber of Finn’s voice roaring right next to his ear and the room spinning around him and the lack of ground under his feet and, wait, no ground, wait…

Gadget’s placed firmly on his feet mere seconds after the hug-and-spin that was needlessly thrust upon him (though he’d later reflect that, perhaps in other circumstances, maybe he would actually enjoy it, just a little), and his first words are not heartfelt, or gentle, but just as booming as Finn and with alarming distress: “You’re tall!”

This is just about shouted into Finn’s chest (Gadget is still being hugged (and is hugging back, undeniably)) and Finn only knows he said anything over the rumble of the surrounding airport because of the vibrations Gadget’s creaking tenor voice leaves in his chest (proximity, not power).

Finn pulls back, troubled by the tone and not sure what to make of it, simply responding with a dazed, panicked, “Yeah?” that cracks at the end.

His panic is furthered, if only for a moment, by Gadget’s subsequent movements of hand comparison, that funny maneuver where the hand, palm down, is dragged from the top of one’s head straight across to the other person, and Gadget lets out a distraught squeak when his hand bumps against the center of Finn’s sternum.

“What?!” This is Gadget speaking, or rather borderline hollering, as he stares exasperated at Finn. Then, just like that, he deflates. His head hangs. It’s a pity party for one.

Finn stands there, completely dumbfounded, watching his friend stew in his own misery, then walking forward to pat his back with the finesse expected from a young, awkward teenage boy. “There, there,” Finn soothes.

He receives a small, saddened whimper in response.

Later, when Gadget’s home and nestled in a neat corner of his bare room, it dawns on him that Finn’s boots had heels. His ears pop again.

B L E A S E reblog i beg of u my crops are dying