#that’s always a joy

[adrift-in-thyme]

Febuwhump Day 12: Semiconscious (Warriors & Time)

Ao3

CW for poisoning, vomiting, blood and injury, and a near death experience

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He stopped seeing clearly long ago.

His surroundings are no longer distinctive shapes. No, they are mere colors now, smeared and edged in the glare of lantern light. It is as though someone poured oil out on the street and left it to be trampled.

Warriors stumbles over something substantial and nonexistent. Another wheezing breath tears out of his lungs. Everything tips sideways and he goes with it, tripping over his own feet. He collides with a lamp post, frightens a blurred figure, garners murmurs of “inebriated” and “not right in the mind.”

He doesn’t care. Not much is bothersome, he’s quickly realizing, when you can’t breathe.

Wildly, he glances around. The buildings lean right, then left, their glowing windows seeming to leer at him. The inn…he has to find it. That is where his brothers await, that is where he can get help.

Warriors gulps in air and gains nothing from it. The ground tilts. He goes down, bile rising in his throat. He has already vomited up everything his stomach contained. But his body is desperate, desperate to rid itself of whatever is killing him.

So, it tries again.

He comes up feeling no less dizzy, no less sick. If anything, it is worse now. When he shoves to his feet, his vision goes abruptly dark. For a moment, he is certain that this is it. This is when he collapses, surrendering to the bitter embrace of oblivion. But then it screams back into a mirage of shifting shapes and nauseating shades of vibrancy.

“Captain?”

Warriors blinks rapidly. Someone is standing before him – a woman he thinks. The visible edges of her expression convey worry.

“Are you well?”

He grins and it feels wrong. Lopsided, clumsy, sharp…a grimace more than anything else.

“Not to worry. ‘M fine.”

“Oh.” She frowns now. Or at least, he thinks that she does. Drunk, her silence screams. Irresponsible. “O-oh alright, then. Goodnight to you.”

It’s good a thing, his mind assures him, as Warriors gazes dazedly at her retreating form.

It’s a good thing that they think you’ve drank too much. Better than them knowing. Safer.

…yeah. Safer.

He is certain he’s going to be sick again. His lungs rise and fall, and nothing comes of their efforts. The ground churns like the sea in Wind’s Hyrule. If only it were warm here like it is on that beautiful beach. But no. Here it is icy cold.

He shivers, stops the failure of his equilibrium with a nearby wall.

Just find them. Find…find your brothers.

Darkness tinges his vision again, spreading like an ink blot on cloth. It grows from left to right, and he lists sideways, drifting towards it. Something catches his boot on the way over. He stumbles, fails to catch himself, crashes down in a tangle of long limbs and thick fabric.

“Oh, look what we’ve got here!”

Giant forms move in the borders of his waning sight. Warriors stares up at them, icy heat prickling the back of his neck and head. Everything smells and tastes of iron. Everything hurts.

“It’s the princess’s favorite little errand boy!”

Something flat and harsh connects with his cheek. Warriors’ head snaps sideways. He chokes, coughing blood onto the pavement.

Get up! His instincts screech. Get up and fight!

He ignores them. It’s so easy to do that now. They are usually so loud, so boisterous and unignorable, hardened and loudened by years of experience.

It’s nice to silence them for once.

“He don’t look so good. Looks like somebody already got a hit on ‘im.”

“Poison?”

“Seems like it. He reeks of something rancid and it ain’t whiskey. His breathin’ ain’t right either.”

“Well, then.”

A hand fists in his collar. The next thing he knows, the ground is falling out from beneath him. He hovers somewhere above it, gazing obliviously at the space before him. Something is there – or maybe someone – but he can’t make out their features.

“He’s all lonesome out here. Might as well finish what they started. It’ll be easy.”

He should be afraid. He’s not.

Warriors feels nothing now except pain. Well, pain and the curious sensation of drowning. Strange, he doesn’t remember seeing water anywhere around here. But maybe he’s simply floating in it, unknowing, unseeing. That would certainly explain how cold he is.

His body slams back into the ground, and what little wheezing breaths he had managed to garner abruptly flee. Dull panic slices through the haze for a split second – just long enough for him to grab a wisp of air. Then, it’s back, a fog as thick as the stuff hovering over Time’s Lost Woods.

Unavigatable. Unbeatable.

For once, he can’t win this battle. For once, he has an excuse to succumb.

And he’s not one for giving in – his stubbornness is practically unmatched – but throwing in the proverbial towel now…fills him with relief.

“Go on boys! Gut him!”

The words reach his ears, but he hardly hears them. And he certainly doesn’t comprehend. Everything is so very far away…

It’s odd how without oxygen the world grows soft.

His head flops sideways. Lazily, he blinks into the indistinct expanse of Castle Town. The colors run together more than ever now. He can hardly tell them apart anymore.

Its beautiful, he thinks, with a loopy smile. Like Arty.

The soft shink of deadly metal surrounds him. Pain streaks through his abdomen. He coughs. Blood spills down his chin and drapes his tunic in crimson. It is wonderfully warm.

Again, metal strikes. More blood, more warmth. More pain.

His eyes flutter. There is not much to see now. But darkness is beginning to be replaced with dazzling light.

It is as beautiful as Castle Town…maybe even more. It beckons him, envelops him like a hug.

Come, it whispers, in the voice of his mother, come to me, dear child. Rest.

Somewhere, someone screams.

Warriors smiles and it is a soft, gentle thing. He starts to step forward.

“No!”

Hands grasp his wrist, as small as a child’s yet, much too calloused to be. Warriors dares to glance over his shoulder.

Mask stands there, his green clothing even more vibrant in the world of white. Tears have turned his large blue eyes the color of Warriors’ scarf. His lip trembles, despite the way he has it between his teeth. And while his grip is strong, his expression is a rapidly crumbling wall.

Warriors feels the tug again, the call from the endless light. He needs to go. He wants to. Sweet Hylia, he wants to.

“Sprite…”

“You-you can’t!” Mask shouts, stepping closer. He is shaking, Warriors realizes. The child who has faced monsters larger than himself armed with nothing more than a cocky grin and a slingshot is shaking. “You can’t leave me!”

The tears fall and smudge the markings that have now appeared on his face. Shades of blue and red trickle down his cheeks.

Warriors blinks and suddenly, the child’s hands are drenched in blood. He gasps, stumbling back. But Mask holds on.

“Sprite, I’ve got to go,” he says, desperately, because he must see that he can’t remain here. It’s time…isn’t it?

“No. It’s not.”

Mask ducks his head, as a sob tears at his tiny body. Salty water plunks onto the ground. It sounds like raindrops.

A downpour on a sunny day. A child curled beneath his scarf, grinning mischievously. A beautiful woman laughing, face upturned to the sky.

A tear slides down Warriors’ own cheek.

“Oh, Link…”

“Please,” he croaks, soft now, vulnerable. Broken. “Please, don’t leave.”

A single eye meets Warriors’ two. A face marked by a war god crumples, every year, every battle, every loss written in the tears streaming down it.

The captain moves closer. The light seems to dim now, lessened by the aching in his heart. Time…Time should never look like that. If he could reach him, maybe he could make that pain go away.

Time drags in a trembling breath. Crimson-drenched fingers fist in Warriors’ scarf like he did so often as a child.

“I need you, big brother.”

Warriors take another step and another and another. He can’t stop now. The decision seems plain. Whatever is behind him, wonderful though it may seem, is not yet for him. Not when Time is looking at him as though he is his entire world and then some. Not when he can hear them now — the faint pleas of the other heroes.

His brothers. His family.

He reaches out, fingers brushing Time’s cheek. The hero’s breath hitches as he leans into his touch.

“I’m right here, Sprite,” the captain promises. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

With a sob, Time falls into his arms. Warriors closes his eyes and buries his face in his shoulder. And as they cling to each other, the endless white surrounding them comes crashing down.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[holographings]

70s loumandaniel sandwich for @/DarkishGrey302 on twt <3 <3 <3

[monachopism]

Some good news:

Two days ago, Massachusetts signed off on their fiscal budget, which makes community college completely free for all citizens.

"Last year, we created MassReconnect - free community college for students 25 and older - and gave thousands of people another shot at degrees they put on pause... This year, I signed a budget that builds on that success and makes community college free - for everyone." - Gov. Maura Healey

[spielzeugkaiser]

Being on the nostalgia train this week really helped stretching my artistic legs again. So here, have some old things and some new! For now I'm done with this.

[stil-lindigo]

warmth.

a comic about not being alone.

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creative notes:

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all my other comics

store

[howling-wizard]

saints

[myballsitchaurghouchie]

Dance untill the sun sets

[ID in Alt Text and under the cut.]

ID: A digital drawing of the Lamb and Narinder from the video game Cult Of The Lamb, dacing over a blue background. The Lamb is drawn with a short ponytail, wearing white shorts and a red top with short sleeves, as well as arm and leg guards. Their back is facing Narinder who is holding one of their hands up above their head. Narinder is drawn as his follower form, wearing wide pants and a red shirt with wide, shoulder-length sleeves. Both characters are smilling and have a slight blush over their face.

[lale-txt]

writing reader inserts is so funny because it's like. yeah you would NOT say that but now you do and you're gonna enjoy it. it's inevitably pouring a part of you into this fic. it's describing your dissociative daydreams in overly detail to everyone searching specifically for food to feed their dissociative daydreams. it's coming up with a hundred different scenarios on how to get railed by your favorite 2D man and yeah his dick is always big and he wants you so badly. it's playing barbie with Y/N who is like an universal OC at this point. it's going on silly little adventures in my mind and taking you all with me. reader inserts i love you so much.

[bigshotautos]

PIIP PIIP

[bruciemilf]

What’s your favorite interpretation of Thomas Wayne? As of now, mine is ‘parent who threatens you relentlessly but would snap if something actually happened to you’

Thomas sometimes takes Bruce to the hospital because A.) Alfred needs a break, and B.) he needs a little intern to fetch him things.

Except Bruce just keeps making grabby hands at all the scalpels and surture scissors. “Bruce, put that shit back down or I’ll knock the white off your teeth, sit down!”

Bruce doesn’t. Thomas doesn’t do shit, naturally.

“See?! See what I have to fucking deal with, Leslie?!”

“He tripped, by the way. “

She’s never seen Thomas run so fast since the night he met Martha, chasing down her car so he could propose to her.

[dionysism]

i think about this roman statue of odysseus escaping polyphemus' cave beneath a ram often

[stolenviolet]

Harry in different outfits! As requested over on twitter.

[soosoosoup]

Chord Striker Au by @thatbennybee