#the worms are unwell

[mtndewbunne2]

After everything had settled, Miles saved his dad, the Spiders defeated the Spot; there was only one thing on Miles' mind. Would he ever see them again? A part of him wanted to feel confident that he would with Hobie’s homemade multiverse watch and everything. Yet a part of him… told him not to be hopeful. They avoided him the first time, who’s to say they won’t avoid him this time? After three weeks of absolute radio silence, Miles can’t help, but think that the negative part of himself was right. Until none other than Hobie Brown himself pops straight into his universe.

— ohmigee punkflower <3

and before anyone says anything, i won’t argue about age, in this fic Hobie is about 16 or 17 and Miles is around 15 maybe 16

anywayssss I’ve been writing this since I saw the movie and I’m super proud of it!! Chapter 4 is currently in the works and will be up soon :))

[aanniehunt]

inspired by @rollercoasterwords' as the worm moon dies (+ ref)

[birrdies]

art because i am absolutely insane over @canarydarity's titanic au. please read it here because oh my GOD.

[lifemod17]

Bugs mention AND Like Real People Do?? So important to me!!!

Kia Forum night 2 || 09/18/2024

[crowreys-wormstache]

Would you light my Molotov cocktail for me if my hand turned into an insect-like claw, making it impossible for me to strike a match? Would you do that for me, if I asked? Would you look deep into my eyes and know that despite everything I am still entirely yours? Would this be your way of silently acknowleding that you never stopped being mine either? Would you let yourself mourn what could have been, just for a moment? Would you light my Molotov cocktail for me?

[canarydarity]

(haha happy new year! Heres 6K words of DL ranchers fighting 🤩 [ao3]) dull&slow

There was no feeling like a respawn; it was like jumping off of a building with nothing below to catch you, only to discover you had in fact been fastened into a harness when the bungee cord snapped taut. Except, it also wasn’t like that at all, because the mechanics of respawning—regardless of permanence—did nothing to curb the feeling of death, the actual sensation of dying. All it really did was remove the relief that one might experience had death been final, for what is death but a merciful release from pain? 

Jimmy imagined that there were few things that could even begin to feel like what a respawn did—the simultaneous cracking of all your joints at once in a manner akin to a human glow stick; ice cream that had been left out on the counter to melt but was then shoved back into the freezer again after only making it to that indescribably viscous stage between solid and liquid; a jam in a paper shredder—the kind where half of the page is relieved and sticking out of the top, completely intact and fine, while the rest is in ribbons below, still warm to the touch at the recent dismemberment. 

And that was only the physical aspect—the violent draw of your subconscious from the brink of death to perfect health mid-panic was something else entirely. It never got any easier, no matter how many times he did it (and Jimmy did it a lot). 

This was their second respawn, but it was different in the way that it happened unlike it did the first time: together. It was new but not unexpected to shoot up in bed at the ranch, cows mooing to his left and moonlight peaking through the window to his right. Jimmy heaved some breaths in and out; logically, he knew he was fine, but his body remembered the vertigo of falling. 

Tango was next to him, still lying back in their small bed staring at the ceiling. 

For a few beats, they were quiet, they caught their breath. The buzz of the cicadas outside was heavy in a way, droning alongside the cacophony of cows and the muted clucks of chickens from below ground. 

When his eyes began to itch and dry out from staring at nothing and his heaving sounded more like huffing, Jimmy broke the silence first. 

“I was leanin’ over the edge…why was I leaning over the edge?” His words were incredulous and barely there, only formed enough to actually get them out of his mouth but not any further. Had Tango not been right next to him, he probably wouldn’t have heard. 

Tango sat up, “Jim, hey–hey!” One of Tango’s hands reached behind Jimmy and settled on his shoulder, the other moved across himself to settle on Jimmy’s arm. “It’s okay! It’s only our second life, it was bound to happen sooner or la—”

Jimmy blinked out of his daze to realize Tango was soothing him; It was not shocking in the way it hadn’t happened before—it had actually, in fact, happened quite often—but in the way it was happening now. the combination of noises pushing in all around the ranch, having just lived through dying, again, and Tango’s warmth that he would’ve appreciated any other time, made it all immediately too much. Tango was soothing him—Tango misunderstood. 

It was instinct to throw Tango’s arm off of him, to scatter, to stand and create distance, and had Jimmy been in the right state of mind he would’ve explained that and apologized, but Tango’s shocked offense was the last thing he was focusing on. 

“No, you—why was I leaning over the edge?” 

It was the only thought that had run through his head since he’d woken up and stopped feeling like an egg mid-scramble. Not worry about being on red life, not concern about having been the one to return the favor of killing Tango this time, not upset that things were shaping up like they always did. 

Tango wasn’t necessarily wrong to assume that that’s where Jimmy’s thoughts had gone, as that’s usually where they would have. But this was not Jimmy when he was anxious, when he was guilty; This was Jimmy when he was mad.

He was pacing, but he wasn’t aware when it had started. He was just—he couldn’t stop thinking about fish. Or—no, not fish, parasites; there was this parasite he’d heard about that matures in the eye of a fish but reproduces in the belly of a bird. Jimmy had heard this and thought what a stupid, impossible thing—and he’d thought he had shit luck.  

That was until he’d heard the rest. Under control of the parasite, infected fish swim closer and closer to the surface of the water, leading it to be spotted and picked up by a bird; the parasite ends up where it needed to be all along, and that damned stupid fish is what gets it there. It doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s not choosing to swim near the surface—by that point, the parasite is choosing for it—but it’s still— 

It just—

The fish gets itself eaten, essentially. The scariest part, Jimmy thought, was that he wasn’t sure the fish even knew. Was it aware it had been infected? Or was it swimming up and up and up and thinking what the fuck am I doing? Was it resting precariously below the surface, watching in fear as the birds circle, knowing all it had to do to avoid being eaten was swim the fuck back down, but for some reason, it just couldn’t?

Jimmy just—why was he leaning over the edge? His hands were wrapped around his stomach, griping his sides, hard. His teeth were grinding together, or he was biting his lip, or he was mumbling nonsense that even he didn’t know what meant. 

The floorboards of the ranch creaked and groaned with his pacing, and Tango remained watching from the bed, his face still painted in confusion. 

A noise—something caught between a whine and a grumble—worked its way out of Jimmy's throat, and more words came with it.  

“I saw them with their bows and arrows out—Joel, Etho, Scott—and I—” He shook his head. “We’d have been fine if I just didn’t peak my head over!” 

Jimmy turned back to Tango and pointed at him; Tango blinked, but the accusation delivered wasn’t for him. “And they weren’t even shooting at Grian, at—why weren’t they shooting at anyone else?”

Tango shook his head a little, opened his mouth to reply, but Jimmy wasn’t done. “I don’t understand—I don’t—” he grabbed at his hair and pulled; he bit into his lip again, not stopping when it started to hurt even though he knew Tango must’ve felt the ghost of it too. Jimmy rocked in place, “I even thought it. I thought ‘what are you leaning over the edge for, idiot!’ And then!” 

Jimmy spun, but no form of movement could match the direction of his thoughts, the restlessness of his mind. He felt like he was malfunctioning, every action begun and then subsequently aborted in favor of another; as if he could stop it all if he could just get himself to feel physically how he felt mentally, equilibrium a sort of saving grace. 

Jimmy hit himself in the head once like he could knock things back into place, fix whatever was loose in there–get the paper to start shredding again; in pieces, maybe, things would be okay. There was a call behind him of stop that, hey, none of that! and the bed creaked as Tango finally made the move to stand. 

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy mumbled again. They were inside, but his hair still felt the wind ruffle through it as though he were at high altitude; his hands touched nothing, but he could grip the hardwood of the defense tower all the same, rough and splintering. Joel and Etho had stood so far below, looking up, each with a hand up to their eyes to shield them from the sun. Jimmy remembered every detail about that moment—Grian had been leaning over right next to him. “Stupid parasite and it—why weren’t they shooting at anyone else? All I had to do was not lean over…”

Jimmy startled when Tango spoke again, he’d forgotten for a moment he wasn’t alone. 

“I don’t follow—parasite? What pa—”

Right, he wasn’t alone. 

“Gosh, and I’ve killed you, too, we’re–we’re red!” Jimmy said, facing Tango again. “And we’re back to nothing, we’ve lost everything—the horns, they’d have taken them by now, surely.” The anger from before seeped back into his voice, and Tango kept his space; a part of Jimmy felt bad at that, but he mostly felt validated. The guilt would come later, his chest didn’t house the room to feel so many things at once. 

Though space didn’t mean Tango was willing to stay out of things completely. 

“Jimmy, just hold on, I can’t keep up.” Tango was clearly still thrown by the direction things had gone in—he’d been expecting to reassure, not pacify—but Jimmy didn’t have it in him to stop and explain. His hands out like he was corralling a feral animal, he said, “What are you even…? Slow down, alright.” 

And maybe that was the last straw—his soulmate, known for his rage, asking him to calm, to slow down; the stark contrast between the Tango standing in front of him—hands splayed, face confused but determined—and the Tango who’d needed to be restrained as the ranch smoldered behind them; the fact that it was Jimmy who was being looked at like a time bomb with not even 5 seconds left to spare. 

This time, the accusation was meant for Tango, and Jimmy watched him stumble a little in shock when he received it. He threw his hand out like he’d needed that extra strength to pull the question from him, like his throat wasn’t up for the challenge alone, like he had to prove this was something he wanted to start and start now.  

“Why aren’t you mad?”

Tango’s face wound up with disbelief. “What?” 

Jimmy’s voice wasn’t made to be raised, but he gave it his best effort. It hurt, in a way—his throat not used to the coarse delivery; it hurt more for the fact that he’d made Tango the object of its direction. 

“You’re sitting here, and you’re calm,” he spat. “And—and you’re telling ME to be calm! Me!” Jimmy huffed again at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. “Why aren’t you mad?”

This time as Jimmy spoke, Tango wound down; he visibly CTRL+ALT+DLT-ed, a total system shutdown reboot. His hands dropped back to his sides and he stood up straighter. His face reset until he was just blankly watching Jimmy sputter and steam. He was still in a way Tango rarely was.

Jimmy thought it was the most un-Tango-like thing he’d ever seen, and that just made things worse. 

“Because it was going to happen either way, I could’ve just as eas—” its delivery was flat, like Tango knew he was stepping off of a bear trap but onto a landmine; though he did it anyway, and in most circumstances, his dedication to the idea of if at first you don’t succeed! was something Jimmy found endearing. If it wasn’t clear enough already, this was not most circumstances. 

Jimmy made a noise of dissent. This wasn’t—

“No, not—that’s not what I meant.”

A few beats of silence. They argued with the awkward hesitation of two people who’d never fought before and therefore didn’t know the procedure; neither of them had had time to memorize their lines. Fight was something they didn’t do—partially because they hadn’t been together long enough to garner the need, and partially because they got along with a simplicity they hadn’t expected. There was a question in this lapse between one comment and the next, an are we really going to do this?  

Tango blinked at Jimmy. “You don’t mean why am I not mad at you?” 

It would’ve been an easy out if he had. A way to walk them back to familiar ground—the kind where Jimmy was apologetic and guilty and anxious and Tango was steady and reassuring and kind. 

He couldn’t lie and say that wasn’t part of it; he was a liability, and he would never be over Tango being his collateral damage. 

He looked away from Tango, “Well—”

“Jimmy…” Pity was such an ugly, regretful thing. 

“No! No—yes, that’s not what I mean.” And it really wasn’t—at least, not at first, not completely. That was the undertone that would drive all his decisions and thoughts and feelings, it’s true, but this was different. This was—they’d died, Jimmy killed them, and Tango wasn’t upset about it; moreover, Tango was docile, passive. He was—

“Then I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

—resigned. 

Jimmy didn’t yet look back, because he knew it would be his turn to talk when he did. All that he had to explain lacked the rationale to be said aloud; simply put, he was mad because Tango wasn’t. 

“You’re gonna have to give me something to go off of here, Jim.”

Eyes still fixed resolutely on the wall, Jimmy repeated the only sentiment he really could express at the time. “You’re not mad…” He let the end trail off, embarrassed it was all he had to offer, knowing it was unfair to Tango, knowing a normal person would’ve been able to voice more; just another way Jimmy fell behind. 

“At?”

“At anything!” He was discovering that when he did yell, his voice got high, and he tended to cut off the ends of his words. They shortened, got sucked up into the emotion until they weren’t letters anymore but sounds. “You’re—I had to restrain you, practically, after Scar burned down the ranch! And I wasn’t there, but I heard about last life and I—”

He felt like his sentences were being recorded in takes; start and stop, start—stop, mark! He would sound so much better edited together. He needed a script, surely he’d be able to say the right words had someone else given them to him. He’d do it right then, he knew. Of course arguing, too, was something he wasn’t good at.

Jimmy gestured at Tango, “You’re not mad, at anything, you’re just standin’ here! We’re going to die and it’s like you don’t even…like you’re not upset.” The final clause came out dejected and unsure; it sounded like it belonged to a completely different conversation. If he were reading lines, he’d likely receive notes about consistency and remaining in character. It was hard to do that when he wasn’t sure who he was or was ever supposed to be.

Tango looked no less confused. “That’s how the game works, Jimmy—we’re all going to die at some point.”

“I know that, Tango, I know.” Jimmy bit his lip. “How are you just okay with it?”

Tango’s eyebrows raised in shock, the kind that spoke to his questioning the audacity of something. “Well, I’m not happy about it, bu—”

“You are, though.” 

Eyes narrow, frustration finally starting to seep in, Tango said: “No, I’m not.”

“You are!” This felt more tantrum than argument; more whining about not getting his way than making a point about having been wronged; he wasn’t really sure he had been wronged. At least, not by Tango. But he didn’t know how to rewind, he didn’t think there was a going back. 

“Damnit, Jimmy, I’m not. You think I want to lose this?” 

No, Jimmy didn’t—and that’s why he was so confused. 

“Then why aren’t you angry that’s what I don’t…” This line of questioning wasn’t going to work—he’d already discovered that again and again. He needed to figure out a different direction to head in. “Even now I’m yellin’ at you and you’re just there.”

“So now you’re mad because I’m not yelling at you?” Annoyance, frustration, irritation—they were close, but none of them were what Jimmy wanted. Or—not what he wanted but what he needed. People were mad at him far too often for him to crave it in this uncommon time when no one was, but he needed to know Tango was with him on this.

“No, Tango!” Jimmy whined.

“Well you’re not explaining anything, what am I supposed to think? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying to me!” His voice finally at an above-normal volume, Jimmy shrunk; reality wasn’t ever quite like expectation, was it? The simultaneous relief mixed with the guilt, and everything got worse; he thought maybe that’d been his goal all along, he could see it now that it had occurred. And yet, it wasn’t right; sure, Tango was mad—but he still didn’t get it. Tango kept rambling.

“You’re mad that I’m not mad, and you say it’s not about you, but then you’re also mad I’m not yelling at you—which I have yet to figure out, by the way, and—” 

Following Tango’s wild hand gestures, Jimmy’s eyes landed on their wall of chests, and he knew what he needed to do. He scooted past Tango, who turned to keep facing him, and started rooting around until he found what he was looking for. 

“Oh, and you’re ignoring me too, now, which is neat,” Tango said to his back.

He’d wrapped it in a bundle of spare wool hoping that bed made they wouldn’t need much else and Tango wouldn’t find it on accident, but he pulled it out now and turned back to face Tango gripping it in his hand.

His soulmate shut up immediately, his gaze first on Jimmy’s hand, and then up at his eyes. 

“Where did you get that.” The anger was finally there, but Jimmy didn’t immediately respond. “Why do you have that?”

The golden apple was cold in his hand, colder than he thought it should have been. It glowed slightly in the darkness of the ranch, a yellow hue that spread out in a dim radius; he had the bizarre thought that it would've made a good nightlight had it not been illegal. Jimmy had always been a bit scared of the dark (he’d been pleased, then, when the game had started and he found that his soulmate glowed just the same). He didn’t need the apple sitting on the lid of their chests to provide light—not so long as he had Tango; how ironic then that he only got both or none, that consuming—and therefore getting rid of—the apple would rid him of Tango, too. 

Jimmy didn’t want to be left alone in the dark, but that was sort of why he looked back at Tango and he said, “I think you should eat it.”

“No.” It was both a response and an expression of disbelief rolled into one; a no, this conversation is not happening, not now, and a no way in hell is that thing getting anywhere near my mouth. The stillness was back, but it was more dangerous this time; less resigned, more preparing to strike.

Jimmy repeated himself, lifting his arm and holding the apple between them as he did. “Tango, you should eat it.”

“No.” Tango shook his head. “Jimmy, I said no.” 

“Why not?”

“Why not?” A sardonic, humorless laugh made its way out of Tango, and Jimmy flinched at the sound; a broken echo of their usual selves. “This is a joke, right? There’s something here that I’m missing that makes this all super-happy-funny and we’ll laugh about it in 5 minutes.”

“I’m serious, Tango.”

His hands on his hips, Tango nodded at Jimmy as he said, “you are.” It was deceptively compliant, mockingly understanding. Jimmy was misled often enough in conversation to recognize when he was being set up, but he hadn’t quite yet learned the skill of letting things go; he walked again and again through a door labeled trap! which was how he knew he was doing it now. 

“Yes...” 

“Serious-serious, you’re seriously asking me why I don’t want to eat a golden apple.” Tango doubling down, Tango continuing to misunderstand, the fact that Jimmy couldn’t blame him for any of it, the feeling of everything at once, and the knowledge that all was out of his control; he felt his eyes well up with tears of frustration. 

“That’s what I just said...” Dejected, a clown waiting for the punchline—waiting for others to laugh at his expense; setting up joke after joke, forgetting what it was like to not provide the entertainment. 

“Well I just wanted to confirm before I informed you that that’s the stupidest question I’ve ever been asked in my entire life.” It was at this point that Jimmy let out a breath, and a tear fell with it. “Like, wow it’s almost an accomplishment how stupid that question is.”

“Tango…” He’d plead but he knew he didn’t have the right—not in this conversation of his own devising. It wouldn’t be a lie to say he didn’t know how they got here, but it wouldn’t be the truth either. 

“Really! I’d make you a ribbon to commemorate and everything if we had literally anything to our name at all.”

Catching the opportunity to jump back in, Jimmy took it. “Okay, that—that’s my point.” 

“That I haven't offered to make you a rib—” 

Jimmy cut Tango off again before he could stuff the conversation with more nonsense in defense. “That we have nothing—have had nothing since we started!” 

It was more than just luck—it was design. There came a point where chance ended, a place coincidence didn’t reach. Jimmy had dwelled long enough in the space between unlucky and doomed to know that one was cyclic, intermittent, while the other was ceaseless, fixed. Luck would come and go, but damnation? That kind of fate had been here since before all of them, and would remain long after. 

The subject was taboo, but there wasn’t a single person on this server who was unaware that Jimmy was ill-fated. They poked and prodded him about it, but any level of seriousness to the conversation was buried under veiled laughter and slightly glassy eyes; the kind of sheen to a stare that said even if they tried, they couldn’t know what it was they talked about. To everyone else, Jimmy’s “curse” was a bit they’d overindulged in; to Jimmy, it was a burden he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge. They didn’t let him. 

He’d thought maybe…Tango was being forced to share it; maybe something would click; maybe they’d let him have this for just a few weeks. 

Jimmy didn’t think he could get any more stupid. 

The sarcasm remained equipped, defenses high. “Well, I’m sorry that you think I’m not doing enough to provide for you, Jimmy, bu—”

Jimmy groaned again. “Tango can you be serious for 2 minutes! 2 minutes, please!” 

“No!” Tango was looking at him in a way he never did; a look that conveyed I cannot believe you, the underlying sentiment of dismissal that hurt more for it coming from the only person who’d ever really listened to him without reservation.“You know what, no, I cannot. If you’re going to start a ridiculous argument you’re going to get ridiculous responses—you don’t like it, too bad.”

Jimmy had been involved in a lot of ridiculous arguments before—it came with being a reactive person; he existed with defenses always already half-raised, on high alert for anything that might make him the center of negative attention. 

But this wasn’t one of them. The ranch, Tango, soulmates—they were easily the most valuable things he’d ever had—and that was why he couldn’t have them. He was going to lose it—he was already losing it; it never hurt so much when he was the only thing he had. “Gosh, dont you get it?! There’s nothing we can do—nothing! I’m gonna kill us, you understand?”

It felt good to say it out loud, to watch Tango blink in the face of such bluntness. Somehow his shock betrayed his lucidity, and proved to Jimmy what he’d feared all along: Tango felt it too. 

And that made him circle all the way back to the beginning of this stupid roundabout conversation. Maybe he didn’t know it in so many words, having less time to experience it than Jimmy did but Tango knew—their time was running out; running out in a way it didn’t for anyone else playing these games; running out in a way Jimmy had—until now—never before been allowed to acknowledge. Tango knew. 

And Tango wasn’t mad. 

“Ugh, this is—this is childish, is what it is! I don’t…I can’t believe this is happening. This is—it’s madness.” What did they bother going in circles for if they were just going to end up right where they’d started?

“You’re the one trying to force feed me a golden apple,” Tango grumbled, eyebrows raised and face mocking as he looked at the cows. A few of them were standing against the fence staring back, mooing insistently; a strange audience for a strange night. 

“Because I’m sick of it, Tango!” He was, once again, not the right recipient of this complaint, but what else was Jimmy to do? Seasons of grief built up in one desperate conversation, it was becoming more a list of grievances than a call to action. “Of all of it! Of the jokes, of losing, of—of not being in control of anything, of dying—and you—”

“Me?” Tango huffed, interrupting. “Wow, tell me how you really feel, Jim.”

Jimmy shook his head and looked down, a dismissal; his answer immediate and unhesitant. “No, that’s not what I—” 

Sick of Tango—it wasn’t possible, but he saw in his hands that he still clutched the golden apple, and he was reminded again of all the ways in which he was dangerous; of the ways in which he was the heavy rock tied around Tango’s ankle, sinking slowly despite all efforts. He closed his eyes, tight, hard enough to hurt, and swallowed the bile in his throat. “You know what, yeah. I am.”

He looked up again to look at Tango, forcing himself to look determined, sure. “Yes, I’m sick of you.”

“Jimmy…” There was a warning there, but following warnings was never Jimmy’s strong suit. 

“I am!” He didn’t think there was much of a chance Tango would believe him, but he loved Tango enough that he owed it to him to try. “I’m sick of you and how calm you’re being. We’re losing everything, again, always and you’re just standin’ around and I’m sick of it, Tango.” 

Tango refused to answer, and Jimmy knew to be any convincing at all, he had to commit. 

“I’m sick of this place,” he gestured around the ranch, rebuilt since the fire but still nowhere near as advanced as the other bases on the server; they could try and try and try but they’d never reach that level; they couldn’t be allowed to have an actual chance. “and—and how we built it from nothing and it still didn’t matter. We weren’t even doing that bad, and we’re still losing, and I’m sick of that, too!” 

Tango standing still, Tango with his hands on his hips, Tango refusing to rise to the bait in Jimmy’s words. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t believe me? Fine, I’ll just keep going then.” He shrugged, undeterred, glancing around as if he wasn’t bothered—and his eyes landed on the cows in the corner, still watching them as if simply their being awake meant they’d be getting fed. Jimmy raised the arm with the golden apple, using it to point at them. “These stupid cows mooing all the time—the chickens—might as well just kill ‘em all now, 'cause they’re not going to matter either, are they? I’m over this place, and—and everyone else treating us like a joke.”

He looked back at Tango when he’d finished. “And I know you’re sick of it too, you are.”

“I’m not.” This, finally, was familiar ground—Jimmy projecting, Tango reassuring—but for once, Jimmy wished his anxiety proven right, he wished Tango would give in and admit that this wasn’t what he wanted—that Jimmy wasn’t what he wanted; not if it meant the absence of a fair chance.  

“You are, you have to be.” And it was somewhat like begging. Jimmy’s never begged someone to be sick of him before—he was usually pleading for the opposite; how backward, how wrong, everything in him screaming what are you doing?! No one else had ever treated him like Tango did. 

He sniffed once—as he was still crying—and kept listing things; the sort of fears it would kill him if Tango validated, but he said them anyway. If there was any chance it’d get Tango to eat the apple and be safe. 

“You’re sick of having to cater to me, right? Of having to answer a million questions and reassure.” Tango began to shake his head, but Jimmy ignored it and kept going, stepping closer to his soulmate. 

“And I bet you’re sick of losing, too. You don’t want to lose, Tango, not again, right?” It was a low blow, but Tango didn’t look hurt so much as he looked sad; he accepted Jimmy’s meanness as a product of his fear, and he curbed his offense to make room for the heartbreak. 

Figures that Jimmy starts a needless argument insulting Tango endlessly and was still the most pitied in the room. He didn’t know if it was a product of his selfishness or Tango’s altruism, but the effect remained the same. 

Within arms reach at last, Tango raised a hand but stopped it midway between them, unsure if breaching this distance was yet allowed. When Jimmy didn’t do anything about it, Tango lowered his hand until it rested on the front-facing part of Jimmy’s shoulder, eyebrows furrowed, not trusting that this was over.

Jimmy mirrored Tango with his own hand, feeling the warmth of Tango’s vest and above-average temperature below—the heat that’d been keeping him warm at night when they couldn’t splurge on extra blankets or were sleeping in a half-burned-down building or just because. He only allowed himself to feel it for a second before he pushed—not hard, but enough to make Tango take a step back, more because he wasn’t expecting it than due to force. 

“Come on,” Jimmy pled. “Fight back. Get mad, hit me.”

“I’m not going to hit you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy stepped forward and pushed again, both hands; not harder but more firm. “Fight back, Tango, come on.”

“No.” Tango’s face was scrunched together in the most vehement disagreement he could give, and, out of options—out of energy—Jimmy made another noise somewhere between a whine and a groan and raised his hands again, only for Tango to catch them this time and drag Jimmy closer; dropping his hands the second he was within holding distance, one of Tagno’s arms wrapped around him and the other cradled the back of Jimmy’s head as he pulled it down towards his shoulder. Their height difference made it difficult at first, but they’d been practicing for weeks. 

Jimmy went without protest, arms at Tango’s waist, screwing his eyes shut tight enough that he could almost pretend he didn’t hear the I’ve got you’s that he didn’t deserve but Tango was nonetheless whispering to the side of his head. He wanted to protest—or, no, he wanted to want to protest; to keep trying until Tango understood, until Jimmy screwed up enough that Tango got fed up and left the way anyone else would’ve done weeks ago, possibly just upon finding out they were paired. 

“You’re okay—we’re okay,” Tango said. “I’ve got you. We’re going to be okay,” hand steady on the back of Jimmy’s head, holding fast when he tried to shake it and express his opposition. Jimmy didn’t think that ‘okay’ had a place here, not for them, not anymore. 

They were on their last life now, he could feel the effects of being red thrumming through him, though they weren’t as much to blame for the damage he’d caused as he wished; this disaster, like most, was entirely Jimmy’s own. 

Still murmuring and offering reassurance, fingers of one hand still scratching through Jimmy’s hair, Tango used his other to gently pry the golden apple from Jimmy—no longer putting up a fight—and toss it away without looking until it rolled on the wood flooring through the gate of the cow pen. Jimmy watched, head still on Tango’s shoulder, as the cows shuffled around for the lobbed apple, mooing increasingly louder until, after a crunch or two, it was assumed no longer there. 

He felt more so than heard Tango clear his throat, the motion vibrating through Jimmy like a warning. “I am mad,” Tango whispered, voice only half-formed at the low volume. “I am,” he repeated, “don’t think I’m not.” His tone the kind of calm that only gave way to true anger. “But what can we do?”

Jimmy closed his eyes. He didn’t know. 

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

They’re in bed after, facing each other in the dark; Tango watching Jimmy, Jimmy watching their clasped hands between them. Tango’s thumb ran along the ridges and valleys of his knuckles, waiting for something, though he didn’t know what. In his mind, Jimmy was running through all he had to offer—the things he should say, the things he couldn’t voice—but what he kept getting stuck on was:

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Tango said; not exasperated, not upset, just matter of fact. 

Jimmy raised his eyes to Tangos, shaking his head as much as he could while lying down, not willing to risk any more miscommunication, “I’m not sick of it here.” 

“I know, Jimmy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” Tango pulled their joined hands until Jimmy scooted forward, head under Tango’s chin, all not forgotten but, at the moment, behind them. They were on their red life, after all—there were other things to worry about. 

Jimmy knew that the fact that Tango loved him shouldn’t be one of them, but when it was more than he wanted to live, it was. There was nothing he could do about it now. They would wake up in bed tomorrow and, maybe if they were lucky, the day after that—but there wouldn't be another respawn. They were out of time, out of options—this was it. 

Tango loved him, Tango wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t need to press his ear further into Tango’s chest to hear his heartbeat—not when it was an echo of his own—but he did it anyway and tried not to number the beats like a countdown, to assign them values and limitations. 

He squeezed Tango tighter, comfort disregarded; it was an offering where words had previously failed him, though there was no guarantee that his message would translate this way either. Physicality was another language Jimmy had never gained proficiency in—pretty much any method of communication verbal or non-verbal was—but he owed it to Tango to try. The trace of his fingers along Tango’s spine said I’m sorry, his breath on Tango’s chest whispered of how he’d spare Tango’s heart from his if he could; forehead to collarbone asked if things could still be normal tomorrow, since there was now a very real possibility that tomorrow was all they had. 

He didn’t bother interpreting the response, focus lost as Jimmy tried and failed not to drift away on the subliminal messaging of his own; that this was his loss, his failure, his fault. 

If he’d tried, maybe he’d have read the brush of Tango’s fingers through his hair as I don’t mind, the press of lips to the top of his head as reaffirming the deliberate choice being made—the decision to stay, to be a part of this. 

But he didn’t. Jimmy was stuck, and not at all like he had thought. Maybe he wasn’t the fish, maybe he was the parasite; the birds were circling and Jimmy could beg all he wanted, but Tango loved him. Tango wasn’t going to swim down. 

Tango wasn’t going anywhere.

[ef-1]

r u relaxed? | october 24, pt 1

[touyatodoroking]

He's been rotating in my brain for years now, going feral like a totally normal person

It's so normal:'D I'm so normally obsessed with this blue-eyed, devastatingly beautiful fictional man. How could anyone not be?

image credit to original creator

[wrmwood]

god i need to talk about trigun. i’m like a vampire tho i can’t talk about it to ppl unless they specifically ask

[waitineedaname]

actually I'm not done thinking about teru and ritsu's friendship. I think teru might be one of ritsu's first real friends. ritsu isn't like,, the most social kid in the universe, and I think he has plenty of superficial friends (see: "I talk about the weather with pretty much anyone") but I think the only real close friends he has are teru and shou. and I think it's bc both of them are people he met without his Perfectly Ordinary Middle Schooler mask. he has to fill the role of honor student, perfect son, doting brother, etc. all the time while ALSO trying to blend into the background and be inconspicuous, and that's part of why he lashed out like he did during the cleanup arc, but with teru and shou, his first encounter with both of them involved him being an arrogant little shit that's willing to pick fights, which contradicts the perfect kid act AND the perfectly ordinary middle schooler act, and is in fact much more honest bc he's not hiding this kind of nasty side to himself. and that honesty works out for him with these two! teru sees himself in ritsu because he's also kind of an arrogant little prick, and aside from initially trying (and succeeding) to intimidate him, teru looks out for him and risks his life trying to save him and they genuinely get along pretty well! and with shou, he sees that ritsu is willing to fight him on his own and he's like "oh you're fucking nuts, we need to be best friends now" and immediately respects him a lot just because he's not gonna run away from a fight he's certain to lose. idk, I just think it's important that ritsu's first real friends are ones who saw him in rather ugly circumstances and wanted to be friends with him anyway

[elf-trash]

lmfao I finished replaying Inquisition and my fingers somehow slipped and I accidentally wrote a second chapter to this Solavellan one-shot I posted literally 9 years ago (almost exactly to the day) ☠️

[hrzwrm]

hot take (maybe idk) but Warden Superjail has to be the most accurate adaptation of Willy Wonka as he is in the book, without even being a direct adaptation. not literally, obviously, but in terms of characterization. like i love the movie versions on their own terms, don't get me wrong, but they are simply not the appropriate magnitude of deranged, calloused, egomaniacal manchild. Warden however-

[peoplearescary]

There is something about Yoo Junghyuk initially coming to the conclusion that Secretive Plotter is Kim Dokja from the future because Secretive Plotter had some sort of animosity towards Kim Dokja and wants to destroy him

And Kim Dokja meeting a younger version of himself and immediately trying to kill the Oldest Dream (and himself if that's what it takes).

[call-me-strega]

Hot to Go by Chappel Roan is just playing in my head on repeat so that’s how I’m doing rn.

Out of curiosity, what song fits the vibes of your current mental state y’all?

[stinkrascal]

that scene in the grove when you first meet wyll and hes being so nice and sweet and patient with the little tiefling child like okaywhat if i killed everyone and then myself right now. what if i sustained myself on a diet of glass and mercury alone.what then

[canarydarity]

(mooooooooooore DL rancher angst. because what else am I good for </3 /j)

No matter how you looked at it, the knock was startlingly out of place; it was late, late enough that a truce-like state should have fallen over the players, late enough that no one would want to risk running into more mobs than they could handle; it was peaceful, they hadn’t accrued more than a single pair of red names so far, and he didn’t think they’d given Ren and Bigb a reason to come after them—at least, not more than anyone else had; it was also them, all season people had been coming and going from the ranch as they pleased, not an ounce of courtesy in sight. If someone really wanted to come in, they woulda just done it. 

So, all in all…a knock?

Tango was already up and halfway across the room by the time his brain had synthesized these as the reasons why. 

Behind him, Jimmy called a wobbly and worried “Tangooo?” 

“Just,” Tango threw a hand backward towards the bed in hopes of staving off Jimmy’s shadow until he figured out what was going on. “Stay there, for a second.” 

Like some cut-off had been reached, the second he was close enough to wrap his hand around the handle all haste had vanished—the feeling of urgency holding a negative association with his proximity to the door. He’d had the nerve to get up, to get himself there, but getting his hand to turn and push was an entirely different thing. 

The door not yet having been opened, the possibility of what was waiting for him on the other side yawned and stretched towards endless. In a way, not knowing but speculating was worse than just opening the damn thing and facing the one singular scenario that was, but that was why he struggled to do it. Schrodinger’s danger—this was stupid; Tango opened the door. 

No one was there. 

He blinked in the face of its emptiness for a moment. Of all the situations he had considered, absolutely zero of them included opening the door to nothing. The one definite thing a knock spoke to was the presence of someone—something. So, what, they risked the middle of the night in peace times to come to the ranch they all loved barging into anyway to ding-dong ditch? That seemed, like, a gazillion times more unlikely.  

Tango moved to shut the door, trying to shake off the adrenaline, the too-familiar feeling of someone else being a step ahead of him and bemused by it. He ducked to turn back to Jimmy, play the brave one, laugh it off in hopes Jimmy would follow, and then, he saw: just a glint in the corner of his eye, something small and shiny on the doorstep. 

A golden apple. 

Tango stared at it the way you’d stare at a car crash you hadn’t the chance to get out of the way of in time, the look a doctor had in their eye when they announced your prognosis was bad, abysmal, terminal. It was the brightest thing for yards—a glowing, unignorable fixed point; the kind of bright that in tree frogs usually indicated poisonous, the kind of glowy cartoonists made chemicals when they wanted you to know falling in would reduce you to bones. And it just sat there. 

“Tango,” behind him, the bed creaked. “What is it?” 

Urgency returned, and, with renewed purpose, Tango moved once more. Fear flooded his senses again—it hadn’t really gotten very far to begin with—but this time it was of a different breed, born from someplace else. He tried to both square himself in the doorway, block the view out, and regain nonchalance, affecting some sort of behavior that would convince Jimmy to just leave things be. “Nothing, don—”

But Jimmy was already behind him, and Tango wasn’t tall enough to obstruct his line of sight. 

“Oh.”

And it sort of felt like Tango had failed. Failed what he didn’t know but by the stone in his stomach he knew that he had. He tracked the feeling all the way down his throat and through his middle, getting hooked and snagging on his organs as it went, pulling them with it until he was completely out of alignment, rearranged all wrong; the moment where you opened a test booklet and realized you didn’t know a single answer. 

He shook his head, an aborted no becoming no more than a breath that passed his lips at just the right angle to whistle or whine. He bent down and picked up the apple, and, no sooner than he stood again, lobbed it down the hill towards the ravine in some effort to rectify even a modicum of his uselessness. The apple thunked hard into the dewy late-night grass, probably rolled somewhere out of the way; he didn’t know, he couldn't see it anymore—he’d have to grab it and dispose of it at some point, but he could do that in the morning. He had other things to attend to. 

Tango shut the door and turned to assess the damage. 

Jimmy’s arms were goosebumped where they were exposed—just his white undershirt left on to sleep in—and his head was tilted down, the top of it visible to Tango more than anything else, his hair not mused enough yet to be called bedhead though it was certainly a start. Tango took a step towards him, crowded him just a little, placed one of his hands on Jimmy’s waist, skin warmth bleeding through the thin cotton, and the other on the junction where his shoulder met his neck. Jimmy stayed looking down. 

Tango couldn’t think of a single fucking thing to say. 

After a few seconds, Jimmy sniffled, pulled up one of his hands and ran it across his nose, mushed it into his cheek. 

“Hey,” he ventured softly, in the absence of any other thought. Jimmy only glanced up slightly. “Let's…go back to bed, yeah?”

If it hadn’t already been clear that all chances of sleep had been banished by the panic of a late-night knock, it was by the way they both responded to that statement by sitting on the side of the bed rather than lying back down. A haze had fallen over the room, a trance-like state prompting them to move in the way they thought they should, in the way it seemed they were being directed; their actions pre-determined, someone else's hand on the joystick. Robotically, they maneuvered onto the bed side-by-side, silence still reigning, eye contact (from one party) still vehemently denied.  

And it just…wasn’t fair. The way there was no period of wondering between the discovery and the understanding, the way Tango didn’t see the apple and question why it was there, but rather knew, innately, what was being poked, prodded at. He hadn’t stopped to doubt, he hadn’t been confused, and maybe that’s what was the most upsetting—not the presence of the apple alone, but the way the person who left it was confident its message would be interpreted without fail. The way Tango was complicit by letting it.

It was the fact that he hadn’t opened the door to a trap or an ambush, but to a taunt; the apple not left behind as some sort of distraction, someone waiting to break in the back while they looked out the front, but as something else entirely, something completely unrelated to the game and its progression. There were no hidden motives, no ulterior plans—only the sadistic amusement that came with throwing a rock into a pond just to see the fish scatter. It didn’t put whoever did it ahead, it didn’t force them to fall any more behind. It just was, and it was cruel. 

Jimmy was still silently staring at the opposing wall, the both of them not even bothering to pretend they weren’t dwelling, and the more Tango sat in the discomfort that had fallen over the ranch, the more he thought, the angrier he got. He couldn’t just be here anymore and not do a single fucking thing about it. He leaned nearly entirely off the bed in his reach for his shoes, shoved his feet into them without precision or care about their security, and was up, diverting on his way towards the door to scrunch the fabric of his vest and pull it off the back of the chair it rested on, before turning on his heel and then he was off—

He was stopped with a hand gripping his forearm in its passing by, came to with Jimmy shouting “Tango!” for what he knew likely wasn’t the first time. 

Tango looked. Jimmy hadn’t gotten off the bed, but he’d leaned forward to latch onto Tango and stop his campaign, his eyebrows raised in misery, his lips downturned in upset. He wasn’t looking away, just around; his eyes landing on the wall behind where Tango was standing, on the door that had remained quiet since they’d shut it again, on Tango’s chest, or his hand around Tango’s arm. It was the closest Tango had gotten to eye contact in minutes. 

“What are you gonna walk around in the dark ‘til you find who put that there?”

Yes, if he had to—if that’s what it took. But before he could even begin to open his mouth, Jimmy pled, “Tango…” like he hadn’t really been asking, like he’d been hoping saying it would confirm Tango knew that idea was nonsense, not that Tango had been meaning to try regardless. It begged for common sense, it betrayed its wish to concede. 

Tango let out all the air he’d reserved for his returning argument as a heavy breath, almost a sigh, a huff. Its frustration was clear. He knew he wasn’t going to find them, he knew there was no conclusion to be had, he knew the joke had already hit and the moment had already ended. He knew that. But he also knew that complacency wasn’t the answer, and that Jimmy deserved to be fought for. 

He could’ve gone out anyway, walked around until the sun started coming up and all the mobs turned to ash—hell, he could’ve knocked on goddamn doors, inspired the same kind of fear in everyone else that a late night interruption in a game like this did them, and then demanded answers, no more Mr. nice guy. At least that way, he wouldn’t have had to lay back down, to have the conversation he hadn’t stopped thinking about since. 

But Jimmy said, “Can we just go back to bed? Please?” And knew it was a request that couldn’t be denied, knew the power in this interaction that being the victim afforded him, and knew how to play his cards to get Tango to fold. 

Tango took his shoes off, again, kicked them out of the way of the bed, gestured behind Jimmy with the hand that wasn’t being detained. Jimmy scooted backward on the bed, Tango’s forearm still in hand like the moment he let go Tango would dash immediately out the door, or dematerialize entirely, maybe; or even…run down the hill in search of something shimmering gold, and find himself unable to resist just one sweet bite. Tango followed him, nudged his shoulder until he complied and laid back down, allowing Tango to pull him closer as he did too. 

Jimmy still didn’t look at him. They were nearly eye to eye, only one pillow to share between them both, face to face in the dark; their foreheads leaning against one another, shifting away only to find each other again after any and all movement. 

Tango watched the sentence form on Jimmy's lips, watched his face rearrange throughout the composing of the question, the stringing of the words in a line, packaging them to be delivered. He swallowed as he awaited its transmission. 

“If it weren’t against the rules, would you…?”

And Tango said, “It is against the rules,” before that could get any further. The wrong answer. He knew immediately after he said it that it was, and he’d kick himself for it if he could any feasibly at all without getting Jimmy in the crossfire. He knew better than to give a non-answer, but he hadn’t been responding to the actual question, his first thought only stop—a futile hope he could head off Jimmy’s negative feedback loop by undermining it at its core. Another failure on his part. 

Jimmy closed his eyes, shook his head, “But if it weren’t—”

“No.” 

Tango placed one of his hands on Jimmy’s cheek, tilted his head back up towards his, but Jimmy’s eyes remained trained down. “No,” he repeated—he insisted. He didn’t need the eye contact to know Jimmy didn’t believe him. 

He leaned up and kissed Jimmy on the forehead, slid his hand from his cheek to the back of his neck and held him closer, but neither of them fell asleep for a while.