#which would be. so funny how badly Gideon could take that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whump-town · 4 years ago

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The Narcissist

My tasteful whump approach of: what if Tobias Hankel had made good on his word and come to kill Aaron Hotchner?

No major warnings apply, whump, angst, and sweet, sweet fluff

Word Count: 5k

If Aaron Hotchner smoked, he’d be blowing through a pack of cigarettes right about now. Gideon had benched him. The older man had taken one look at him and pulled him aside. He’s a nervous wreck. The tremor in his hands visible as his voice had cracked, asking the team to just broadcast what they each thought were his worst characteristics. Gideon let him drive his point home-- Aaron is many things but a narcissist has never been one of them-- and put him in a place where there was only one right answer. Gideon had told him no one would blame him if he couldn’t do this.

“It’s okay if you can’t handle it.”

His stomach cramps at the thought of those words.

Narcissists.

Bully.

Drill Sergeant.

Sexist.

Weak.

Leaning with his weight on his left arm, pinned above his head, Hotch vomits against the side of the house. His knees shake and tears he can’t control the tears that roll down his cheek. He bites back a sob as he falls to one knee, nearly landing in the puddle at his feet. They’re right, he concludes, shaking so hard he’s not certain he’s going to be able to get back up. He’s nothing but a bully. Worthless. Weak.

“Aaron Hotchner?”

Hotch looks up to see a dark shadow approaching him. He sniffles, straightening as his heart pounds. His subconscious drawing up his shields. Something’s not right. “Who are--” he jerks back, blinking dumbly as his brain fails to comprehend what’s just happened. He’s looking up at the sky, flat on his back. A gunshot. He coughs and gags as the thick taste of copper coats his tongue. He’s been shot.

“I condemn you,” the deep voice rasps into the dark.

Hotch just blinks, ragged wheezes leaving his mouth. He’s looking down the barrel of a gun.

“2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." The hammer draws back as the sound of the old front door being thrown open rips through the night. “Every sinner must pay--” the hammer strikes.

--------------

Derek finds Reid.

He’s sitting on the floor with his hands bound in front of him, just waiting for whatever torture comes next. When his eyes land on them, he lets out a broken sob. Drawing his feet to his chest, he shakes his head. “No,” he rasps, burying his head in his knees. “No. No. No!” He starts to rock, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and his body drawn tight.

“Spencer?” Gideon tries to crouch near him but Reid kicks out and pushes himself away.

“No,” he cries. His eyes meet Gideon’s bloodshot and red-rimmed. “No,” there are tears pouring down his eyes. “I killed him,” he rasps. “I killed him, didn’t I?” His tone shifts. His body… Spencer Reid isn’t their rookie. He’s not their kid. He’s a shell. Broken. His voice rasps and breaks as he pleads-- the truth. He needs the truth. “Gideon, you have to tell me. Did I kill him?”

Gideon shakes his head-- oh. “Derek!” his voice is a bark, a command. It’s a level of control and demand that Morgan hasn’t seen or heard of since Adrain Bale. It snaps Morgan’s attention to the man though. “Get Aaron and Garcia on the phone and get out of here. Hankel’s going to them.”

Morgan freezes in shock, processing exactly what that means. “He’s…” his eyes dart to Reid. The younger man’s eyes bouncing between Gideon and Morgan, trying so desperately to figure out the answer to his question. So Morgan doesn’t say it, he just nods and turns around shouting out for Emily. But, by God, he thinks it. He thinks it and it makes his stomach twist and his blood cold: Tobias Hankel is going to kill Hotch.

Garcia doesn’t answer his calls.

Three calls.

All to voicemail.

Morgan drives through the yard, cutting time and not giving a damn. He pulls right up alongside the police cruiser and an ambulance. “Hey,” he shouts, throwing his door open and leaving it as he runs to the first cop he sees. He pulls out his badge. “My team,” he says. “We’re working a case here. Where are Agents Hotchner and Garcia?”

The cop looks him up and down, obviously displeased with being interrupted from his leaning and watching as everyone around them works. “I don’t know,” says with a shrug. “We got some guy waiting to get picked up by the coroner.”

Morgan curses in frustration. “This isn’t some joke to me, man.” He looks around, “is there anything else you can tell me?”

Before the cop can say anything further, Emily shouts Morgan’s. She’s jogging up through the grass, moving away from the crowd of EMTs, officers, and other jackets standing by the side of the house. Motioning for him to join her, he steps back towards the car. Following.

“Hotch and Garcia are headed towards the hospital,” she shouts. “They’re not sure Hotch is gonna make it.”

--------------

Penelope Garcia stands completely alone.

Around her, the emergency room buzzes with its flooded life. Such a stark, dark comparison to her friend. His still chest barred for anyone to see as doctors lean over him. The wound is still oozing blood. A dark vacuuming wound. Sucking. He’s as pale as death and silent. He’s not crying in pain. His dark eyes aren’t scanning every inch of space he can see.

He’s still and silent.

From here, she can see the wounds from Adrian Bale’s bomb. She’s only known him since that bomb. That day.

“This is Penelope Garcia with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” she’s still new to the job. A greenie, the other agents playfully taunt. She doesn’t find it all that funny but this is better than federal prison. “How can I help you?” She’s got one hand holding the weight of her head, the other clicking her pen lazily against the desktop.

She’s not special here. She’s got nothing. She hates this job.

“Miss Garcia,” a weak voice greets. “I don’t know if you remember,” the caller coughs, wet and thick. That’s when she hears the wheezes. “I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good boss but it’s Agent Hotchner.”

She remembers. He’s who’s she’s supposed to be working with. That is before she got pulled to work at this desk all day doing nothing. She’s got about three more months of this garbage before she can be trusted with any of the real stuff. Before she can go work with the teams on the units-- mostly, to work with Hotch and his team. Of which, she still hasn’t met.

“I remember,” she says. She’s not sure what else she’s supposed to say.

He chuckles on the other end but it ends in an awful sounding cough. “Sorry,” he wheezes. “I’m afraid…” he takes a deep breath. “Have you seen the news?”

“No, sir.”

He hums. “Well,” he says, “we’ve gotten ourselves into a spot of trouble.”

From what she can tell, she feels that’s probably an understatement. Through his silence, the short pauses between his quick, shallow breathing, she can hear the commotion of a hospital. She can even hear his heart monitor. An undergrad degree in biology on a track to medical school doesn’t get you much in cyberspace as a hacker but she knows, from the sound of that monitor, somethings not okay.

“I was just wondering if you could do me a favor?”

His voice sounds so soft, nearly subdued almost as if he’s falling asleep, that she can’t say no. “Of course, sir.” She’s really only seen him a handful of times. The first time after he recruited her and several times in passing. Every time she can remember seeing him in the hall or in the parking lot he’d always offered a small, shy wave. Despite her frustrations with being placed on desk duty, she doesn’t hate him.

“I, ugh,” he clears his throat. His voice has softened. He’s certainly losing his battle with consciousness. “Haley,” he rasps her name. “My wife,” he clarifies. “I--I lost my phone and I just want to talk to her.” The hurt in his voice, the desperation breaks her heart. “...hit my head,” he slurs. “I...I--I hit my head and I can’t really… dialing the numbers is hard.”

The man just wants to talk to his wife. He just wants some comfort.

“Kind of silly,” he mumbles. “Could dial here but couldn’t remember the home one. The--ugh-- couldn’t remember the home line.”

She smiles and starts to do as he asks but then remembers the limited information she’s got right now. There’s no way she can access his file, let alone get to his personal information to find his wife’s number. “Sir,” she says, feeling tears start to pool in her eyes. She hates to do this because she wants to help him so badly. “I don’t have access to that information.”

They sit in silence for a long pause.

Hotch is struggling to hold on and thinking hurts but he’s sure there’s something she can do about that still… “Break a rule for me,” he says, tone playful. “I know you hate it down there. Hack my file.” He sniffles, the sound of sheets shifting blocking the line as he moves in discomfort. “Please, Penelope?”

Oh… how is she supposed to say no to that?

“You’d better have my back when they chew me out for this,” she says, setting into the task at hand. It’s pretty easy. Nothing like hacking the database months ago. She’s got half the work handed to her.

“Always,” he rasps.

She finds it easy enough. “Alright,” she says. “I’m dialing her right now.” They both sit in silence as the ringing fills the line. Two rings turn into three and she feels her heartbreaking for this poor man. The line clicks to an end and she smiles sadly at the sound of her much healthier boss’s voice greets the end call. Haley, she’s assuming, cuts in and ends the recording.

“I’m so sorry, sir.”

“ ‘s okay,” he slurs. “She’s… She’s pro’ly gonna call back ‘vently.”

Chewing at her lip nervously she offers, “I can stay. If you’d like. I’ll talk to you.”

He chuckles softly and she winces as it ends in more uncomfortable shifting and more of those terrible wheezes. “...don’t hafta.” He chokes on a breath and their conversation takes a pause as a nurse steps in. Her soft voice telling Hotch that he needs to rest and the doctor’s ordered some mild sedatives.

“Can’t,” he whispers to the nurse. “I’m talk’n to my friend Penelope.”

She smiles, blushing.

The nurse responds in kind that Garcia can stay but he still needs to get some rest.

“She’s right, sir.” She cuts in. “I’ll stay and talk to you until fall asleep, okay?”

She can hear the hiss of oxygen which is good because his breathing was really concerning her. When he comes back he sounds better but like he’s half-asleep. That’s probably for the best. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” he says.

“I am,” she responds. “You need some sleep though. For your head.”

He hums in agreeance. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I hit my head.”

“I know.”

She’d talked to him that day until the phone died, even though he only stayed awake three minutes after that. Leaving that day from the office, she’d seen what he’d meant about the news and the “spot of trouble” he’d gotten into. Six agents were dead. She’d cried, right there in the bullpen, for a man she hardly knew.

Since then, she’s really grown to love him. He’s her friend. She loves him.

“Baby girl?”

Garcia turns around and sees Morgan, Emily, and JJ. She stays where she is, tears falling down her face, and leans right into the hugs they pull her into. She needs all the comfort she can get. But the hugging only lasts for so long. There are questions they need to be answered and she’s the only one with the answers.

They give her time. Twenty minutes. Just enough time for Gideon and Reid to come to the hospital

“Okay,” Morgan holds his hands around Garcia’s. Keeping her hands cupped around the warm styrofoam surrounding the shitty hospital coffee Gideon had bought them all. It keeps her hands from shaking so hard. “Can you tell me what happened now?’

Garcia nods and sniffles. She glances up at him once, shying away from his kind gaze. “Hotch went outside,” she starts, “right after you guys left.” Forcing herself to take a steadying breath, she’s able to continue on. Trying very hard to keep her composer. She knows it’s important she tells someone. “I could hear him getting sick,” she whispers because it feels like something she shouldn’t be saying. “You know how he is,” she says, looking up at Morgan. “When he gets like that? So nervous and anxious that he just…”

Morgan nods. He’s seen Hotch work his nerves up like that many times. It’s hard to tell how many times Morgan’s tailed Hotch outside, standing to the side as the man fails to work through an anxiety attack. He’s gonna kill himself one of these days getting worked up like that. Won’t ever let anyone help him, either.

Garcia had wanted to help him tonight. She just… she couldn’t stand to see him like that. Shaking so hard and pale. He’d excused himself after about ten minutes of the two of them just sitting in silence, listening to the other’s going over the plan to get Reid.

“I couldn’t see him like that,” Garcia says softly. “I wanted to help,” her voice cracks and she starts to shake again. “When I--” her breath catches.

“Alright,” Morgan stops her. He rubs her thumbs over her hands. “Take your time. You don’t have to rush.”

Garcia nods and takes a moment, breathing in through her nose. “I’m okay,” she says with a tight smile. Morgan doesn’t believe it. She can tell. Squeezing his hand she repeats herself. “I mean it.” Besides, what comes next is the hard part.

Clearing her throat, she manages to continue. “I was coming outside when I heard the first gunshot,” her voice is already shaking again. “I don’t know-- I didn’t really know what to do? I mean, Hotch has a gun and I don’t so… but I didn’t want something to be wrong and leave him all by himself.” She sniffles a little, laughing sadly at the irony of her own words.

Morgan brushes the tear that falls down her cheek away.

“When I got out there…” she stops, just thinking about what she’d seen.

The porch only had one lightbulb which hung from a strand of wires just hardly holding on. Still, as she stepped out the low light had shown her all she needed to see. The dark silhouette of Hotch’s face and his long body on the ground. There was blood on his face and more pooling onto his white dress shirt. Spreading and falling down the sides of his chest. So much blood.

There was a second man. He’d started talking like he didn’t even see her.

“I condemn you.”

She’d been frozen, in both fear and confusion.

She hadn’t done anything until she saw him pulling the hammer back. Aiming to shoot Hotch again. “Hey,” she’d run at the man with everything she had. Not for a moment did she think about what would happen if the man turned the gun to her. What would have happened then? If he’d shot her?

There’d be two bodies in the morgue.

“Hotch isn’t dead.”

Garcia flinches and looks up at Morgan in confusion. “What,” she rasps, softly.

“You said--” he frowns in confusion. “You said there would be two bodies in the morgue but Hotch isn’t dead. He’s still in surgery.” He leaves out how grim things are looking. That losing Hotch will set off a domino effect. They’ll lose Reid and Gideon isn’t enough. They’ll lose the team. The only family some of them have ever had.

Oh. She nods. Right, no, she knew that. That’s easy for him to say though. He hadn’t placed his hands over the gaping hole in Hotch’s chest. He hadn’t looked Hotch in the eyes, watching as his life blurred out. She had. She’d felt her friend’s heart slowing. Heard his breathing catch, stop, and his eyes dim. She’d been there. She’d held his hand in the ambulance.

She was right there.

She… doesn’t think he’ll make it.

“Yeah,” she whispers thickly. This time she doesn’t let Morgan brush away her tears. She hadn’t told him the worst parts. That she’d hit Tobias Hankel until he stopped moving. She’d watched his blood splatter out around him and she’d caused that.

Then she’d gone to Hotch. Her knees are still soaked with his blood. The grass had just… it was like sitting in mud. Warm mud. His eyes had searched for her in his confusion, his mouth moving to form silent words. She’d held his hand the whole time. Never leaving his side until the E.R. He’d stopped breathing in the ambulance just as it had pulled into the lot.

The worst part is that he hadn’t panicked. While everyone else in the ambulance moved with newfound vigor, he’d finally relaxed. The stress lines in his face had smoothed over and his eyes had calmed of their rapid movement. Through the chaos, he’d just looked at her and as the doctor’s pulled him away he’d squeezed her hand. And she’s still trying to figure out if he’d meant he would be okay or if she would.

“We need to get you checked out,” Morgan says, running a hand over her arm.

She looks up and shakes her head, “no. I didn’t get hurt. I promise.”

He knows she’s not hurt. The blood all over her clothes may not be hers but he’s sat in blood before too. As reassuring as it is to know it doesn’t belong to you… it’s also insanely psychologically damaging to know it belongs to someone else. Let alone that someone else being someone you love.

“I know,” he soothes. “You’re shaking pretty bad and at the very least, a nurse can get us some warm water to get this blood off. Okay?”

For the first time, she looks at the blood staining her clothes. Looking down at her shaking her hands, she sees the blood caked under her nails and dried to her skin. It makes her sick. “Okay.”

--------------

“Haley’s here.”

Emily is the first person to frown in confusion. She’s been on the team for only a few shorts months. Her relationships with them are rocky but forming. Given how tightly Hotch holds to his personal information she’s not certain but… “Haley is…” she glances to Morgan and then to Gideon when the other man doesn’t respond.

Gideon nods his head solemnly.

Emily’s heart kicks a beat, so hard she has to shake her head to regroup. Just some four hours ago Hotch had commended her on her ability to compartmentalize everything she sees and here she is shirking away because her boss's wife is here. But it’s not about some power dynamic. “But,” she swallows thickly around the tightness in her throat, “we don’t have news for her.”

Morgan stands up from his chair, eyes on the floor and back to her as he shrugs, “she knows the drill.”

A cold film of sweat covers Emily’s skin at just the thought. She knows about things that have happened for this team before she was on it. She just… it’s kind of different when she has some surface-level understanding of who they are. Even if she thinks Hotch is a dick, she doesn’t hate him. He’s better than a lot of bosses she’s had and maybe-- well, don’t hold her to it, but maybe she feels bad about the name-calling thing. Emily watches silently, unable to hear the words being shared between them. She can still see, though. The way Morgan’s hands shake as he recounts the details. Haley just… takes it. She nods along, clinically removed. She’s strong, more than she should have to be.

Turning from Morgan, Haley steps closer into the waiting room. Looking around at the others, what’s left of them. “And the rest of you,” she asks. “The rest of you are okay?”

Gideon takes on the question. He squeezes her shoulder, “Reid and Garcia are in the E.R. They’re getting there…”

Haley nods and wraps her arms around herself. She takes a steadying breath. “He’s gonna-- He’s going to want to know,” she says and Emily feels intense empathy for this woman. “You know he’s going to want to know as soon as he wakes up if they're’ okay.”

If he wakes up.

Gideon nods, “I know.”

“Okay,” Haley whispers and she’s numb, Emily realizes, as Gideon guides her to a chair. She’s numb so she doesn’t break. “I would--” Haley grabs Gideon’s hand. “I would like to see Spencer and Penelope. To make sure they’re okay.”

Gideon nods, “I’m sure they’d like that.” And they will. While Hotch prefers to stay in the background and worry but there’s no secret Haley is too. They both have a strong love for the babies on the unit.

And now… they have nothing to do but wait.

“Haley?” Reid wakes up restrained. His thin arms held down to the bed with itchy velcro. While he isn’t familiar with this in a personal sense, he’s seen his mother laid out like this. He doesn’t even have to test the restraints, he knows he’s not going anywhere. More pressing than that… Haley Hotchner sitting at his bedside.

Haley perks up, smiling when she sees his dark eyes open in slivers. “Hey, sweetheart,” she greets. She stands and comes closer to the bed, taking his thin, cold hand in her own. “How are you feeling?” This man may not be of any blood relation to her or Aaron but she loves him. Her husband loves him. He’s family.

Reid turns his head away from her, tears falling down the corners of his eyes. “You hate me,” he whispers.

She knows only what she needs to. Of course, under the jurisdiction and because the case hasn’t officially “closed” she can’t know that Reid chose Hotch. That his words condemned Aaron to being shot tonight. She does know that Reid is unnecessarily blaming himself for the accident. Because, as they'll soon be able to explain, Tobias was going to hurt someone either way. Haley would agree.

“No,” she soothes. “Of course, I don’t hate you.”

Reid turns to her, eyes haunted and voice hoarse, “but I killed him.”

Haley can’t help the choked sound she makes. Vehemently, she wants to deny that but she doesn’t even know if her husband is alive right now. “You didn’t,” she reassures him because at the very least she knows that’s the truth. This job has already taken her husband’s life. There’s no point in placing the blame on anyone else. “If Aaron dies tonight,” just the thought makes her chest tight.

This isn’t what she’d imagined falling in love with Pirate #4 would look like. A widower in her thirties. Raising their son all alone.

She clears her voice, steadying herself and pushing away the thought. “If Aaron dies tonight, that will have no one’s fault. No one but the Unsubs.” She glances over her shoulder, to the crowd of people-- his team. Their family. She’s seen the guilty little glances they pass her. The hug Garcia had trapped her in… they think they could have stopped this. “This, what happened tonight, is no one’s fault. Not yours, not Aaron's.”

Leave it to her husband to form a team of guilt-ridden sweethearts. She really does love them.

“Do you understand me,” she asks, eyebrow raised.

There are nods and general mumbles but what really catches her attention is the soft, sad smile Garcia manages. “You sounded like him,” the tech analyst whispers. “He’s always so worried about us,” she brushes a tear from her eyes. “Sometimes, sometimes we forget to worry about him.”

But he never lets them.

He’s so under lock and key… preoccupied with an image he’s conjured of what leadership is supposed to look like that he forgets the humanity. The bleeding. The yelling. The life.

Until it’s too late.

A doctor comes to get them. He’s alive, if only marginally. If only just holding on.

His humanity is now visible to them all.

In the mess, there is only a light blanket draped over his thin hips. It leaves his chest bare, visible for them to look long at hard at. To force this memory into their minds. To remember that under those suits there is just a man. A man who is broken and who hurts.

And, in the end, it’s her by his side when he wakes up confused and in pain.

“Aaron,” she pushes his sweat-soaked hair out of his face. Even with his eyes on her, he twists, kicking out in pain. He tries to turn his head, pinched eyes sending tears down his face. If he could cry out, he would, but all he can do is choke around the tube in his throat.

It’s like this--

He wakes for a moment, a glimpse of consciousness, and pain. She’s right by his side. She holds his hand and reminds him that he’s okay. That the team is waiting just outside. Then he falls back into the drugs.

It goes on for three days. Hours and hours of his pained kicks and tears. Nothing she can do for him.

On the fourth day, they take the tube out.

The team visits.

He’s sitting up, not of his own violation. There are pillows all around, supporting his back and sides, and two placed around his head to keep his neck supported. He is leaning heavily to his right, curled into the side of his injured chest. Haley’s tucked his blanket up over his chest, doing her best to conceal the bruises up and down his pale skin. No matter how hard she tries, the chest tube nestled between his ribs makes it’s bloodied appearance.

And it’s the first thing they all notice when they come in.

Then him.

Slack against the pillows holding him and eyes out the window on the wall. Half-lidded as he falls asleep.

“Sir,” Garcia whispers. She’s at the front of the crowd and the only one strong enough to push through her shock to get to him. She wastes no time coming to him and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “It’s so good to see you,” she manages between tears.

He smiles when she hugs him. It’s gentle, she’s very aware of the layer upon layers of bandages currently holding him together. “Penelope,” he croaks, sleepy eyes moving down her colorfully addressed body and his smile broadening when he finds no scratches. No harm. His chest aches and he finds it impossible to push out any more words but he hopes she understands.

He can remember a flash of the ambulance ride here. He can’t remember how or why his body hurts so bad but he knows Garcia was there. The faintest feeling of her hand in his, her voice guiding him between glimpses of consciousness.

Garcia smiles kindly, reaching down to squeeze his hand. “I’m really glad to see you, sir.” Even as he is, hardly presently and held together by surgical stitches-- it beats how she’d left him. For the past few nights, she’s woken in a cold sweat hearing his gurgled breaths. The sound and sight of his chest cavity filling with his lungs.

Jason comes next because none of the others can find their courage. “I know you have a sentimental attachment to your ties,” Gideon says, smiling down at his old friend. “But you really do look decades younger without it.” Nearly, identical to the boy that David Rossi had told him about all those years ago. Eager to learn but not fully trusting of their motives.

Still a trouble maker though.

Shame swells in his stomach, another of his failings so broadly laid out in front of them. If David Rossi could see the two of them now, he’d skin them both. Jason had promised to look out for “the boy”, as Dave fondly called Aaron. But the boy has grown out of his shell…

Jason had kicked him out of it with Boston and he knows Aaron wasn’t ready for that.

He ducks his head and leaves Aaron’s side with a light pat of the younger man’s hand.

Derek guides Reid to Hotch, ignoring the genius’s weak protests.

Hotch’s light up, a spark of life in his body as he spots the kid. “Reid,” he rasps. He shifts his hand, dragging it out to touch Reid. To make sure he’s really here. “... okay?” he manages, breathing, taking the strain of so much movement and all his talking.

Reid nods and it takes all of his self-control not to flinch away from Hotch. His skin is freezing. Hotch is always so warm, even just to stand beside. It’s scary and the weight of his guilt pulls Reid down. “I’m--I’m--”

Hotch smiles weakly, a crooked little grin that meets the lazy mirth in his eyes. “Please,” he whispers. “... d’n’t lie t’ me.”

Reid sniffles, tears threatening to fall down his face. As he’s pulling himself into a lie, he’s surprised to find Hotch’s hand just barely raised off the bed. Beckoning him close. For a hug. He wants to stand stoic. For once in his life, to just be the bigger man but he takes one look at his friend at the man he’s lost sleep worrying over, the man who he trusted to save him from Tobias, and he…

He lets Hotch pull him in.

“You’ll be okay,” Hotch promises. Reid tucks his face into Hotch’s neck, wanting desperately to pull more comfort from this hug but it ends because it has to. Hotch holds his hand a second too long, the two of them just looking at each other. “Strong,” Hotch rasps and Reid nods his head.

If Hotch can believe it… Reid has to.

Derek almost doesn’t say anything at all. He can’t find his voice. A part of him wants to just make out unbothered and another part of him wants to gather his boss into his arms and just hug him. Make sure he’s really here. “Don’t scare me like that.” Derek decides on an in-between. He reaches out and playfully messes with Hotch’s hair, making his bed head even worse. “Next time,” Derek says, losing his gusto. He smiles fondly at his friend and reaches down to squeeze his hand. “Next time you pull a stunt like this, I’ll kick your ass. I don’t care who’s boss you are.”

It makes Hotch smile and it creates perfect timing for JJ to steal her own hug. She slips right in beside Derek, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I wouldn’t let him do that,” she promises.

He nods, “...you’d do it yourself.”

She smiles and agrees, “but only if you really deserved it.”

He doubts that.

Emily stands back and attempts to make her getaway unnoticed. She hadn’t wanted to come to the hospital. She isn’t a part of this family, not really, not yet. Garcia had dragged her here though, those sad puppy eyes and a pouty lip. So, Emily caved and she’s regretted that decision since. Especially, when she catches his eyes mid-break-away.

“...okay?” he asks, once again. That seems to be what his main focus is on. The one thing his exhausted brain can pick to identify in each of them.

She wants to scoff or be frustrated with his worry but she looks at his eyes and she realizes that it's a genuine question. He really wants to know. It’s… a strange olive branch to find in the midst of their heated hatred of one another but perhaps she has underestimated him. Maybe, she doesn’t understand him as well as she thinks she does. With a nod, she promises, “I’m okay.”

The ease that sinks into his shoulders is not what she’s expecting.

He struggles to say something else, a mumbled, suppressed something that catches Haley’s attention. She stands and gently runs her palm against his cheek. “Don’t worry about that sweetheart,” she whispers. “Your teams here now, okay? They’re okay.” She wipes his brow, running the side of her fingers along his cheekbone. Smiling when it makes his eyes creep shut, soothing him back down. “Get some rest.”

He nods his head and his eyes fall shut. He’s exhausted. All this talking is hard and he’s hardly managed to stay awake this long all week. “Mmm,” he forces his eyes back open. They move around the room, taking inventory of the crowd. “Okay,” he asks softly.

Haley smiles and keeps up her gentle soothing. “We’re okay.”

His eyes slip back shut. “Okay.”

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #hotch whump #whump #angst #fluff #spencer reid #penelope garcia #jason gideon #derek morgan #jennifer jareua #emily prentiss #haley hotchner

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spockandawe · 4 years ago

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Oh, would you look at that, is it fish book pitch o’clock again? IT SURE IS!!

So, here’s my angle du jour. I’m a sucker for a feral and/or unsocialized fictional character, especially if the story puts them in a position where they either need or want to catch up to their peers on the social front. I didn’t really click with Jin Zixuan until I saw a post breaking down how his awkwardness made a lot of sense in terms of growing up isolated and undersocialized, and I really love takes on young Lan Wangji that really lean into him not knowing how to play with the other children. It’s more fanon than canon, given screentime, but I love takes on Mobei-jun that do the same thing. And! Outside of the cnovel world altogether, it’s part of why i would Die for both Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus. It’s so tasty!

And Jing-wang is a version of this that I don’t think I’ve seen before. I’ve had this bouncing around in my head for a while, but I can’t quite come up with any parallels. Jing-wang grew up isolated in one way because he was an imperial prince, with a dead mother and no surviving siblings. The boy doesn’t have many peers, and things are... messy with his half-brothers. But since he’s mute, he’s (theoretically) not in the running for the throne, and he’s not involved in as much political wheeling and dealing as the other princes. And also since he’s mute, communication with other people is a bit of an ordeal, and only a few people who are very close to him are good at interpreting him, outside of him writing things down. I get the idea that he does very well for himself at understanding and steering the political playing field, even if he’s not mixed up deeply in things himself, but he’s.... very not good when it comes to connecting with anyone on any kind of personal level.

But what delights me the most is that this mainly gets expressed through him being 1) a very devoted and well-meaning pet owner, 2) who is very BAD at being a pet owner.

It gets expressed in little funny ways that go by quickly, like in a stressful meeting, where Jing-wang is squeezing Li Yu’s back in a self-soothing way, and Li Yu is like ‘ow, OW, TOO HARD’ and swims away, and Jing-wang is like >:( for two seconds before Li Yu comes back and starts swimming through his fingers again, and Jing-wang realizes he was squeezing too hard. Or later on, after Li Yu’s been living in a huge tank, Jing-wang is like ‘okay, you live in this bottle now, so i can bring you Everywhere with me’ and Li Yu has to fake being unwell so that Jing-wang realizes that the bottle is way too small to be a permanent fish residence. Very quick little empathy things, where Jing-wang gets the intended message pretty darn quickly, but he still had to be taught the lesson in the first place.

But there’s also like... also early on, Li Yu gets a side quest to steal a pearl from the headdress of the Emperor’s favorite concubine. In the process of doing so, he soaks Jing-wang in front of the Emperor, accidentally slaps the concubine in the face, freaks her out, freaks her son out, accidentally frames the two of them for trying to hurt Jing-wang’s pet fish, and knocks the pearl loose... but sends it to the floor. Fortunately, Jing-wang notices that the fish seems REAL interested in this pearl, and retrieves it, but he’s also pissed at the fish for causing so much trouble.

So what does he do? He’s like ‘OKAY. FINE. You want this pearl? Well what I’m going to do is seal this pearl TIGHT inside a glass vial, and then I’m going to put that vial RIGHT in your tank, so you can see the pearl, but you can NEVER HAVE IT’, you know, like a normal human way to treat your pet fish. Only then, Li Yu had already felt bad about causing such a big scene, and sets up a whole apology where he offers Jing-wang his food (because it’s the only thing he has) and tries bowing in apology, and Jing-wang thinks something like ‘...as long as someone was willing to deal with him sincerely, even if they were a fish, he would treat them sincerely in return’ and he gives Li Yu the pearl.

First of all, I never knew I so desperately needed a book where a man tries to play psychological games with his pet fish, second of all, Li Yu is the sketchiest “““fish””” of all time, and third, oh my god Jing-wang how sheltered are you, how do you not realize that this is nowhere in the vicinity of being normal fish behavior??

(to be fair to him, it doesn’t take him that long to realize things are suspicious, and by the thirty-somethingth chapter he has a decent hypothesis for what the fock is going on with his pet fish)

And later in the book, after he knows that this fish is at least sometimes human-shaped, I’d already been pleasantly taken by surprise (in the mtl chapters) to realize that the relationship development involved Li Yu laying down boundaries and holding Jing-wang accountable when he tried getting around them. And like with the squeezing plot point, Jing-wang is very quick to get the message that something he did made this fish/person unhappy, to realize that he doesn’t want them to be unhappy, and to make a very serious effort to change his behavior so he doesn’t make that mistake again. I just hadn’t quite connected the dots to realizing that Li Yu was coaching him through a number of basic emotional development steps even before things reached the point of sex and consent, haha

(in fairness to me, I think Li Yu is extremely oblivious to all of this. which is one of my favorite flavors of character development in fiction, honestly? i love seeing this growth that’s driven by another person, but unintentionally so, so that two people end up drifting closer and closer, and becoming more and more important to each other, without that ever being something they deliberately work towards)

And I think that the idea that Li Yu is coaching Jing-wang through the steps of emotional growth is honestly supported by the other characters in the novel. In the “original” book, Jing-wang falls in love with and marries Chu Yanyu, who very definitely is not in love with him, and is happy to let Jing-wang get hurt and suffer on his behalf, through what sounds like a very unhappy, toxic relationship. In the book we get, all it takes is a little affection and attention from a pet fish, for Jing-wang to totally ignore what should have been Chu Yanyu’s entry into his life, and for him to continue ignoring Chu Yanyu no matter how many times he’s thrown/throws himself into Jing-wang’s path.

Jing-wang does have some people who care about him, but those relationships are... either unequal, or not-mutual, or made difficult in other ways. The Emperor cares about him, but has complicated feelings, since the Empress died shortly after Jing-wang’s birth, where she was already in poor health after losing two other sons, and it seemed like her health got worse after Jing-wang was born mute. The Emperor also tries not to pay him too much attention, because he’s ineligible to inherit the throne anyways, and paying him attention would make him more of a political target. Jing-wang’s main servant, Wang Xi, cares about him deeply, and is the most reliable interpreter for his nonverbal communication, but is also a servant, not a peer. And Jing-wang’s cousin (on his mother’s side) likes him a lot, but their temperaments are highly incompatible, and Jing-wang tends to get annoyed and throw him out when he comes to visit. (the rest of his mother’s family cares about him too, but Jing-wang isn’t a social beast, and doesn’t make himself terribly accessible either)

And like, early, early in the book, at that stressful meeting where Jing-wang squeezes the fish too hard, before things get stressful, the Emperor is completely derailed from the initial purpose of the meeting, because he’s so pleased that Jing-wang has something he cares about, even if it’s just a little pet fish. He continues to be increasingly pleased with this fish as the book goes on, and it’s both hella charming, but also very :( for what it says about how detached Jing-wang was from the world for the last twenty years of his life. And as of chapter 27, Li Yu is trying to meddle with the book plot to save Jing-wang’s cousin from a scheme that will ultimately see him dead, and Jing-wang just agreed to go with his cousin to the imperial palace, to keep an eye on him. And Wang Xi is so moved by this outreach from Jing-wang that he legit tears up.

Jing-wang is so isolated! Jing-wang is able to play politics, but he does not know how to deal with other people on a friendly social level, and Li Yu is accidentally helping him catch up! I was invested purely on the basis of ‘oh my godddd, jing-wang loves his fish so much,’ which he absolutely does, taking care of his fish is basically his number one priority, but that’s not nearly all there is to this situation! I’m so excited to read the chapters covering the initial relationship development as translated by a human, rather than a machine, because I just know there’s tasty, tasty emotional content in there.

I could have been totally happy with a book where Jing-wang remained cold and detached with one (1) exception, and that’s a relationship paradigm I totally enjoy reading, but seeing Li Yu accidentally teach him to open up and form attachments to other people too is so rewarding and I love it! I know later on, his cousin is falling in love at the same time he is, he has more dealings with his father, and his mother’s family enters the scene here and there, and I badly need to read it. This is just the best comfort food I could have asked for right now. It’s a lovely balance of cute, moving, and absolutely ridiculous, and has character development more gripping than I could have ever expected. I love it so much, you guys ;u;

#the disabled tyrant's pet palm fish #long post/#cnovel rec

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amandajoyce118 · 4 years ago

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Agents Of SHIELD S7E01 “The New Deal” Easter Eggs And References

In the season seven premiere, most of the team ends up in 1931 New York thanks to some time travel shenanigans. We love shenanigans, right? The is the last season premiere ever, and it’s bittersweet, but I’m diving right in.

As always, if you don’t remember this from the last few seasons of me writing up Easter eggs (posts are tagged aos easter eggs if you want to read old ones), this list assumes you have seen the episode. There will be spoilers.

Again, spoilers. Turn back now if you don’t want them. Okay? Good.

The Episode Title.

It’s a reference to FDR’s political work. I mean, Coulson even references it and says the episode title in the show. I kind of love when show’s do that? This show didn’t used to, but they did it a lot more the last two seasons, so maybe it’s a thing now.

The Title Card.

I feel like it’s unfair to call this an Easter egg, but if they didn’t put a 1931 timestamp on the top of the episode, the title card could have told you what era the team was in. Whoever was in charge of designing it did a great job making it look like a classic film title card.

Faceless People.

Okay, so the chronocoms erase the faces of the people they wish to resemble. This isn’t really a thing in the comics, but there is a character called “Faceless One.” He happens to be an alien who wants to conquer Earth as well, but is basically a big yellow ball with legs, so I doubt there’s any connection other than the cool effect.

Coulson’s Data Flood.

Okay, we get that literally everything Coulson says when he’s not talking to Daisy, Mack, and Jemma are quotes from previous seasons, right? Good. He even downloads the information on Ghost Rider, his own death, last season, etc.

Deke Has A Workstation.

Okay, not an Easter egg, but I think we need to take a moment and appreciate that Jemma built Deke a workstation and Fitz left him the tool we saw way back in season five. Why? Because Deke never feels like he belongs and he wants so badly to be close to his family, and now, we see that they thought of him while upgrading their ship. He has a place. And it’s right next to Jemma.

Elena Is Quarantined.

That’s because she was infected by the shrike in season six, not because the writers are psychic and knew there would be a massive epidemic going on when the show premiered. (Sorry, typed that before I realized Jemma was going to actually say it in show, so it’s staying in.)

Gemini And Koenig.

Gemini is actually a pretty popular name/codename in Marvel Comics, so it being used as, supposedly, the code name for the person in charge of the speakeasy made me laugh. It’s much more likely here that the bartender didn’t react wrong to the use of the word, that it’s used to weed out pretenders, hence the double barrel shotgun he affectionately calls the twins. I also like that it’s a tease for a Koenig appearing since we initially thought the Koenig siblings were twins and it turns out there are too many for us to count at this point (not really, I’m exaggerating, but great that grandpa or great-grandpa Koenig looks exactly like the modern day Koenigs. I mean, come on, they’re clones or something, right?).

“It’s not exactly your first time being separated by space and time.”

Okay, look, if you have to keep inserting meta humor into a show about how often you separate your main couple, maybe you should stop separating your main couple. (Yes, I know, Iain de Caestecker had another job he was working on in seasons six and seven, but seriously, it’s not funny. Your audience is tired of it.) I mean, to be frank, Fitz is one of my favorite characters in the show, but I didn’t really miss him in this episode? That might sound bad, but I don’t think they needed to comment on him being gone so much considering Jemma told them at the end of season six she didn’t - and couldn’t - know where he was.

Wilfred “Freddie” Malick.

Daisy explains who he is, but look, it’s the father of Gideon Malick, the same Gideon who became the leader of Hydra after a broken SHIELD (and the Avengers) decided to squash all of its heads, the same guy who got Ward interested in visiting an alien planet where he ended up as Hive. He’s, like, ancient school Hydra, not just old school Hydra. What doesn’t make sense here is that they’re saying the SSR forms in response to Hydra. Technically, the SSR forms, and then they learn about Hydra, unless I’m misremembering, which is totally possible.

The Substance.

So, I gotta wonder… what’s in the test tubes? The earliest we go in the MCU is Captain America, which is still a whole decade after the events of this episode. Prior to that, Hydra experimentation did create the Red Skull, but… still not sure what’s in the tubes. I don’t really have a frame of reference from the comics to speculate either since Hydra was into literally anything and everything.

New York.

Okay, so I’m curious if anyone knows where they filmed their 1931 New York scenes. I have questions. Because they use the same couple of blocks for all their outside scenes, which makes me think it’s a studio backlot (which would definitely help keep the script quiet) and they’re going to use a different part of the lot next week. A friend asked me if I thought it was the same as the one used for Captain America when he’s in Brooklyn in his first movie. Cap’s first movie’s Brooklyn scenes were filmed on a Universal Studios lot where they had New York building facades and street signs. If you’ve been to the theme park, you basically know what it looks like without the 30s/40s dressing. I think it’s the same lot, and I say this because I actually kept thinking that they used the set pieces Disney used for The Newsies movie in 1992 while watching the episode. Do you know where that was filmed? On the Universal Studios backlot’s New York street set up right after it was renovated in 1991. Huh.

So, Mark Kolpack basically answered this on twitter when discussing VFX. They filmed their New York street scenes on the Warner Bros. backlot, not the Universal one, so I guess the people in charge of designing the set pieces did a great job because they look pretty much the same.

This Picture.

This boxing poster was shared by Jed Whedon on instagram. Honestly, I didn’t spot it in the episode, but that could just be because I have a small television screen and I can’t read the signs unless I pause on a computer and zoom. I have bad eyes, guys. Sorry. Usually signage is something I spot on a second or third watch, but according to Whedon, this is set dressing in the episode somewhere. Probably on the street the characters walk down multiple times.

Let’s break down the names. Kitson is George Kitson, a story editor, writer, and production assistant on the show. He wrote this episode, and, actually, next week’s episode. The planet Kitson was also named for him. Titley is Craig Titley. He’s a producer and writer for the show, probably best known for writing “4,722 Hours” at this point. Brown is such a common name, but I’m going to guess it’s for Garry Brown who has directed a handful of episodes and is also a producer on the show. Bell is, I’m thinking, Jeffrey Bell, one of the producers and writers on the show. Tancharoen is for Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the showrunners, or you know, maybe her brother, who has directed several episodes (including this one!), or her father, who is in charge of transportation to sets. Gierhart is, I’m assuming, Billy Gierhart, who has directed a lot of episodes of the show, though I don’t think he’s directed any since 2017. (If you look at the matchups, it ends up being writer vs writer, producer vs producer, director vs director when you assume the Tancharoen is Kevin.) It says there are four main events though, and only three are listed?

Not sure if the October 15 date is intentional, but if it is, that’s the day “Eye Spy” aired in season one? Steve Roger’s mother dies on October 15, but in 1936. Not sure if that’s even canon since it’s in a promotional comic, not in anything on screen.

I’m sure there are more, and if you guys spot them and tell me, I’ll add them in. If I notice any on a rewatch, I’ll add them in as well. Who’s looking forward to the time traveling this season?

#agents of shield #aos easter eggs #aos spoilers #aos season 7 #i wrote a thing

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poc-movie-supremacy · 4 years ago

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Ain’t time a funny thing?

“you’ve changed” - the legends meeting gary after he was stuck in hell for three years Please Thank you so much

This is for @missing-tony I hope you like it!

-----

They really didn’t mean to leave Gary in hell for 3 years. It was entirely unintentional. They were on what would be the second to last mission before they saved Sara from the aliens. It was an all hands on deck mission, so they got John, Zari, Behrad, Mick, Ava, Nate, and Gary. An alien ship attacked them and John tried to send a few of them too hell, but they took Gary with them.

Behrad called Astra and Charlie to help them defeat the aliens. To Ava the mission was a massive failure. Zari broke an arm, Behrad lost a finger, and Mick got knocked unconscious. They dragged him to the medbay where Gideon promised he would be in good hands. Ava called anyone who could make it, to congregate in the main room. She rubbed her shoulder in pain wondering if she had pulled something in the fight.

“Okay everyone, roll call.” They started doing roll calls after Sara got kidnapped, to prevent further kidnappings. Nate, Astra, and Charlie said aye and Gideon informed them that John, Zari, Behrad, and Mick were residing in the medbay currently.

“Well that’s everyone right, That’s 8 people? Did we have 8 people when the battle started?” Ava started counting people on her fingers. She came to the realization the same moment Gideon told them what was up.

“GARY!” Ava exclaimed.

“Gary’s gone? Where did he go? Are you sure he’s not just unconscious somewhere on the ship?” Nate asked.

“I’m afraid not Dr. Heywood. When Mr. Constantine sent some of those aliens to hell, they took Mr. Green with them. I suggest a rescue team be assembled before something happens to him.” Gideon’s cool metallic voice advised them.

Ava rubbed the palms of her hands over her face. “Right, right. Astra, John, and I will go, Charlie and Nate you are backup. Keep an eye on the injured, fix the ship, please thank you.”

They did not fix the ship. Nate and Charlie stayed with the Tarazis and Rory in the medbay keeping them company. Charlie kissed Astra on the cheek before watching her and Ava and John take the jumpship to John’s house which has the easiest entrance to hell. Gideon was using a lot of her energy to regrow Behrad’s finger, and heal Mick’s concussion, so she couldn’t warn them of one thing. The Aliens damaged the ship so badly that When the rescue team headed to 2019, they accidentally ended up in 2021. Without realizing this, John opened the door to hell, leading the way to find a slightly different Gary Green.

It took them a while to find Gary. Astra planned on using her connections in hell, but for some reason the people were acting weird around her. After an hour of this, John lost his patience and used a spell to track Gary.

They walked to the edge of town to find a small hut. Ava politely knocks on the door while Astra and John subtly prepare for a fight behind her. A tall slightly muscular man with curly black hair opens the door. Next thing Ava knows, the life is being squeezed out of her, and the man called her name happily.

“Wait a minute,” Astra starts.

“Gary?!” John finishes. The man pulls away to then hug John and nod happily at Astra.

“Hey guys, wow you haven’t changed a bit. It’s nice to see you guys again, come in.” Gary motioned themselves in the hut. Ava shrugged her shoulders at John and Astra and the trio followed Gary into the small house.

“You’ve changed though Gary.” Astra commented. They only lost him for a few minutes, how could he have changed in so little time.

Gary gave her a weird look. If you spend three years in hell, wouldn’t you look a little different? he thought to himself. “Oh yeah. You guys hungry? Got no upperworld food, but what I got’s not half bad.” Gary told them.

“Um sure, Gary.” Ava told him. She wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, but she wanted to make sure everything was ok.

He got out some cups and poured out a dark liquid. John, Astra, and Ava took a seat around the table. They watched as Gary took a sip out of the dark red liquid. John sniffed it to make sure it was safe then blinked his, Astra, and Ava’s cups out of their hands. “It’s slightly poisonous especially to humans. Who are you, Gary could never drink so much and survive.” John waved his hands as if to cast a spell on the person sitting across from him.

Gary rolled his eyes. “I developed an immunity to the poison years ago. I must’ve forgotten that you guys don’t have the same immunity. I mean, you guys weren’t trapped in hell for three years.” Gary paused and thought for a second. “Except you Astra. You’re followers told me to tell you that General Gage is trying to take your throne. He was mean, so I stole his dick. I didn’t want to go too far though, thought you might want to have the last words and all.”

“You did what?” Astra asked him, surprised. Gary was, peaceful. It was hard to imagine the man in front of her being violent.

“He was being a dick, and saying mean things about you, so I took his dick. He isn’t allowed to be mean to my friends, even if they aren’t or weren’t around to hear it. I would’ve gone farter, but I figured you might want to get the last word in. You know slit his throat or something. I learned the dick stealing trick from you though John, so thanks.”

“Your welcome, Gary. Did you say three years?” John was confused. When he left the ship it was 2019, not 2021, though it could explain the slight differences in Gary.

“Yeah,” Gary stretched the word out as if it were obvious. “When you sent the aliens to hell they took me with them. I was in their control for a year before I managed to break out. Got this little shack over the next two years.”

“It’s a nice shack Gary.” Ava complimented. “Why haven’t you escaped yet?”

“Because it’s easy to send people to hell, not escape. If it were easy I’d’ve been out a long time ago. Thank you for sticking up for me.” Astra told Gary.

“Of course, team mate. Thanks for rescuing me, all of you. I was going to resort to turning some hierer up into a alpaca. I did make this plan before I figured out how to get consistent heat into this place, so the choice of animal probably would’ve changed.” Gary rambled.

Ava gave him a soft smile. It was nice to know that three years hadn’t changed Gary too much. Before they left, they payed General Gage a little visit. Ava threatened him, Gary melted his teeth and Astra slit his throat. It surely taught the citizens of hell not to mess with Astra, or her friends. John took them back to the upperworld and from there they went to the waverider.

“Ah it’s nice to know you’re okay Mr. Green. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you before, but the jumpship is a little faulty. It took you to 2021 instead of 2019.”

They all shared a knowing look and an exasperated smile. Ava and Astra calculated all the damages done to the ship while John took Gary to the medbay. It was a nice feeling when almost all of their teammates were safe. “We’ll find you next Captain.” Gary whispered softly as he let Gideon heal him.

#legends of tomorrow #gary green #ava sharpe #john constantine #astra logue #ella's legends fics #we're all fic writers here

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agentmarymargaretskitz · 5 years ago

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Vlogger Gary, annoyance at first sight.

Happy birthday! I know I’m very badly late but I still hope you enjoy this a little!

For the rest of you, consider an AU where Zari wasn’t the only one whose timeline got changed by Heyworld.

Ao3

“John!”

Someone grabbed his am, and he spun around as Gary called his name again. The other man looked stressed out and panicked, even more so than he usually did.

“What, Gary?” he snapped. Neron and Tabitha were gone, Nate was back, and the world was safe. There was no reason for him to be this anxious.

“The timeline’s changing,” Gary babbled as everyone continued to celebrate and cheer around them. “And because of that, my timeline is changing. Rip recruited me from the future. I’m a kid right now, somewhere out in that crowd, and I’m about to disappear and I’m scared.”

It was a lot to process in a short amount of time, but John shook his head.

“You’re not gonna disappear,” he promised, grabbing Gary into a tight hug. “You’re gonna be fine, you hear? You’re going to be fine.”

“Of course, I’m fine!”

John frowned as he was pulled back from the hug. For a moment, he drew a blank on the man in front of him. Then he remembered exactly who he was. Jeffery Green, but JJ to anyone he ever met. He worked at a museum in the future and had been picked up with the Tarazi siblings when Kuasa was after their totem. An obscure mixture of brains and chaotic energy that had saved everyone’s lives time and time again, not to mention a close friend to John.

“You saved Nate, man!” JJ cheered, slapping him on the back.

John grinned, but still felt like something had been lost in all this.

~~~~

“I can’t believe you talked me into going on this with you,” John grumbled as he walked down the hallway with Behrad. “You could have gotten anyone else- Ava, Nate, JJ?”

“Dealing with the team, my sister’s ex, and refused to go as soon as I mentioned the word influencers. You’re my only available hope of sanity tonight.”

“You wanted to come to this, Behrad,” Zari reminded him from the front. “You always keep asking what the big deal with these is all about. Now I get to show you around my life and people can hear how my little brother is an awesome superhero.”

Behrad glared. “You’re not telling anyone about that.”

“Are you sure? Because people would love to-”

“I don’t want to be on display, Zari. You know this. That’s why we went on the ship-”

John tuned out the sibling bickering as the sound of muffled music grew louder. They had been fighting a lot more since Heyworld had reignited Zari’s desire to be in the spotlight. The attention and the documentary crew that had been on the ship gave her a taste for it again. She’d been off the ship more often now to film videos or attend events like this one. JJ was even struggling to keep her aboard, and he was always the one with ideas that made her want to stay on the ship.

Things had been different since Heyworld somehow. It wasn’t the attention or the documentary crew or Ava moving in and Mona leaving. Something had changed and John couldn’t figure out what it was. It felt as though someone was missing, but no one else seemed to notice it. Although Gideon did have a problem with some phantom data, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary besides the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

“And here we are,” Zari waved at two doormen. “This is going to be fun.”

The doors were opened up to the trio, who entered behind Zari. The whole room was lit up in purple and music pulsed around them. Huge banners advertising eyeshadow or something were on every wall along with a massive one from the ceiling. So many people filled the room, all standing out in some way. It nearly overwhelming just standing there without engaging.

Zari, however, was unaffected. This was her world, after all. “Come on, go mingle. I’ll find you when it’s time to go.”

“Is there a bar here?” John shouted to her over the music.

“Yeah, over there, I think.”

“Great, bye.”

John followed in the direction that Zari had gestured, squeezing through the throngs of people clustered together or dancing. When he finally got there and asked for whiskey, the bartender looked almost relieved. Probably pleased he didn’t have to make some fancy ass drink like the ones he’d seen some people with. Who the hell needed a color-changing cocktail with a glow stick in it?

“Haven’t seen you before,” someone said as he accepted the whiskey.

John turned and nearly rolled his eyes at the man taking a seat next to him. Clearly, he was one of these influencers JJ had been so desperate to avoid. He was wearing a turquoise suit over a gold shirt and had two studs piercing his right eyebrow. Behind the glasses with frames matching his suit, dark brown eyes loaded with eyeliner looked him up and down. This wasn’t just an appreciate glance, but one that seemed to be trying to profile him.

Something tugged in John’s gut, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Probably disgust of being cornered by an influencer or celebrity or whatever the hell this guy was. “First time. Came with a friend.”

“Anyone I might know?” the man pried as he accepted a glass of something that smelled like lavender and was the color of daffodils.

Now John rolled his eyes. “Zari Tarazi.”

“The Dragon Girl?” the man gasped. “Is she finally coming back into the spotlight? I’ve missed seeing her around. She always adds such class with events like this. And you said you were a friend? Lucky!”

John shrugged as he took a drink. He guessed they counted as friends. “I just came for the moral support. I take it you must be part of some circus with that suit?”

The man snickered. “Cute. I’m in the entertainment business too. I’m Gary. Maybe you’ve heard of my videos? Probably more of the spooky ones than the makeup tutorials. You know Beyond Our World? Exploring unsolved mysteries and other otherworldly events.”

“Definitely not,” John shook his head. “You cater to the conspiracy theorists, huh? Good for you.”

“Actually, the ‘Green Beans’, which my fans love to call themselves, have all kind of viewpoints when it comes to conspiracies,” Gary told him. “It’s the interest that brings people in, not their beliefs. Interest is what always brings people in to see the videos.”

“So how much in your videos is fake?” John asked. “You make up evidence to get people to believe in the things that go bump in the night, huh?”

Gary scowled at him. “How dare you, when you haven’t even seen anything I’ve-”

“I don’t need to see a thing,” John snapped, getting out of the seat and facing the man. “And you know why?”

Gary sat there, no emotion showing on his face.

“I know because I’ve seen it all. Ghosts, demons, villains raised from hell. I’ve walked in the shadows. They’re real, but no one ever believes in it. If they did, they’d all be panicking. There wouldn’t be a party. So I don’t need your content. You have nothing.”

Now Gary stood up. He had only an inch on John, but John was struggling to look him in the eyes when he noticed the hideous lime green loafers.

“I have enough,” Gary told him. “I don’t need you to bring me down. Sorry, Zari’s friend.”

He walked away into the crowd. John watched him go and finished the rest of the whiskey. The funny feeling he’d had before was back.

“Now is not the time for you to be standing around like some hapless idiot!”

John clenched his head as the words, his words echoed in his ears. Something flashed in his head. Trying to hold Neron off with magic and shouting at someone. It was Gary, except looking more like he was with the government. He looked hurt and distraught.

That wasn’t right though. He’d called JJ an idiot and the other man had taken a swing that knocked him out. They’d buried the hatchet about it and moved on. But now that…didn’t feel right at all.

“Hey,” a hand slapped him on the shoulder as Behrad came up beside him. “We’re leaving.”

“Yes,” John exhaled and turned to face the other man. “Please, get me out of here. Where’s Zari?”

Behrad pointed to where his older sister was heading for the door. “She’s got a head start.”

“Then we better catch up.”

They started off in the direction Zari was headed, unaware that they had a tail.

~~~~

“You okay, man?”

John glanced over to see JJ entering the library. As he did, he flickered for a brief second, appearing as the normal version of that Gary guy. He recoiled in confusion and JJ frowned at him.

“Definitely going to take that as a not okay. Was it that influencer party?”

“Yeah, something happened there. Picked an argument with someone. At least it was an open bar.”

“Exactly why I avoid those things,” JJ snapped his fingers at John just as Zari walked by. “Not even for you, my dearest Zari!”

“You’re worse than Behrad,” Zari stuck her tongue out as she joined them. “So you got into a fight? Spill!”

“It wasn’t a fight. I just disagreed with him peddling lies and exciting conspiracy theorists.”

JJ got a funny look on his face as Zari leaned forward. “What did he look like? Did you get his name? Real or screenname, I can clap him on CatChat.”

“It’s not worth it. I just felt funny around him.”

“Ooooo,” JJ hopped up to squat on his chair. “Was he a demon? An Encore? An alien?”

Zari smirked. “Or did you have a crush on him?”

“But monsters, Zari! Look at all the fugitives we’ve met in the past year!”

“But feelings, JJ. Even John has them.”

Thunk!

All three of them went quiet at the sound above them. John held a finger to his lips and started looking at the ceiling. JJ climbed out of his chair quietly and started examining the ceiling as well. Zari also was helping and had decided to start recording. Everything was silent, until there was a series of thumps that went across the ceiling and out the door. The trio looked at each other and then ran after the noise.

They made their way down the halls of the ship, following the sounds into Mick’s room. He wasn’t there, which was probably a good thing. John looked around the room for anything that they could use, but JJ had already found a crowbar and was prying off the cover. As soon as it fell onto the ground, John climbed on Mick’s chair and peering into the open airduct. There was nothing one way, so he turned in other direction.

He only saw the bottom of the shoe a moment before it smacked him in the face. John dropped out of the airduct and lost his footing on the chair. He felt himself crash downward and another body come tumbling out to land on him. It was gone after two seconds and JJ was helping him onto his feet while Zari screamed about a stowaway.

John stumbled out the room and saw a flash of green disappear around a corner. He hurried after it until he caught sight of a familiar lime green. When he turned the corner, John stopped to see Mick holding that influencer Gary tightly as he tried to squirm away. He must have followed them back to the Waverider from the party.

“This is all real!” Gary was screaming, his hand still flailing about with a phone in it. “I found proof of…something. If I die, tell my cats I love them!”

John strode forward and grabbed the phone away from him. “This is all fake, just like him.”

Gary glared at John. “It’s not enough to insult my work to my face, but now you do it on my videos?”

“Shut up!” Mick ordered them. “Who are you?”

“Wow, really? Maybe you two are aliens if you don’t know Beyond Our World?”

“If you’re as annoying on it as you are right now, then I’m glad I’ve never heard of it, Larry,” John smirked.

“It’s Gary! Gary Green, you asshole!”

A shrill scream came from down the hallway before Zari ran up to join the crowd. “You don’t know Gary Green?!”

Gary looked up. “Zari Tarazi?”

“Mick, you can let him go,” Zari told him. “Guys, Gary Green is one of the biggest vloggers. He does the most amazing videos for true crime and supernatural stuff, plus a few make-up ones. We did a collab once. It was awesome”

“Zari?” JJ called out. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fantastic!” Zari squealed as JJ came around the corner. “JJ, you have to see this. It’s Gary Green!”

JJ froze once he got a glimpse of the man Mick was now letting go. “Gary?”

Gary gaped up at him, his mouth opening and closing for a few moments before he finally was able to speak. “JJ?”

John turned to him. “Do you know him?”

“Nope!” JJ turned around, but Behrad had come up to join them and he ran into him. “Oh, come on!”

“What’s going on?” Behrad asked. “JJ? Zari? John?”

“He snuck on the ship,” John pointed to Gary. “He’s some celebrity or whatever.”

“I have a very successful brand and channel!” Gary pouted.

“He’s the male version of Zari,” Behrad muttered.

“I know you meant that as rude, but it’s true,” Zari nodded. “But how does he know you, JJ?”

JJ mumbled something.

“What’s that?” John asked.

“I said he’s my brother,” JJ repeated. “This is my brother, Gary.”

Everyone was silent, taking in the information. No one was really sure how to react to the new information connecting JJ to their stowaway.

Zari deciding to snap a selfie with a confused Gary was probably not the most appropriate though.

#kat cornwell #ask box #happy birthday #legends of tomorrow #constangreen #gary green #john constantine #zari tarazi #behrad tarazi #jj green #ship prompt #au #vlogger!gary

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darth-schism · 4 years ago

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Proposed Timeline for Sequel Repair

(Disclaimer: Obviously the plot of each of the following shows should be their own. But they should also take the time to fill in the gaps, plot holes, and basically screw ups the sequels caused. Again, if we can’t have a pocket timeline, we should at least get appropriate plot repair/retcon).

(And yes, there will be overlap between this and other post. But this blog is where I dump all my mental Star Wars related ramblings, so whatcha gonna do)? : P

*10 ABY: Mandalorian S3.

- We learn Moff Gideon is one of the few inside men on Palpatine’s resurrection plan. We get details on how the Emperor used his own DNA, force abilities, etc to make the perfect new vessel. The series ends with Din visiting Grogu at Luke’s temple, and Snoke’s “birth” on Exegol.

- There is overlap between Snoke’s mind and Palpatine’s. More accurately, Snoke is his own person, but has much of Palpatine’s feelings/memories. The sith cult/inside men are uncertain if it is their Emperor in a different body, a clone, or an entirely new person. To ensure the success of the plan, the cult puts off putting Snoke on the throne right away, and instead retains him for evaluation. Snoke though, despite being a mental mess, gives the order to kidnap as many infants as possible, to ensure an “entirely pure” army of new stormtroopers.

*15 ABY: Ahsoka Series.

- Ahsoka faces off against Thrawn, as he works to fully organize and restore the Empire. At the series close, Snoke appears from Exegol, and initiates his hostile take over of the Empire. He rebrands it under the banner of the First Order.

- It is revealed that Snoke showed a high interest in “returning his master to life,” which caused the cult to concluded that he was not the Emperor, and that they would have to try again. They are uncertain as to how though, in light of Snoke being a “failure.” But Snoke then adds his DNA, and significant power, to the resurrection project. Through his efforts, he made the phantom clone of the Emperor that we see in ROS. (Maybe we could even get a Kamino throwback with Bobba, since he tends to lend the Empire and hand here and there for the right price anyway). Either way, the newly awakened Palpatine realizes his reformation will be too slow, and gives Snoke the order to rule over the Empire in his place, while he instructs him from the shadows. He makes it very clear that Snoke is “merely his puppet that he made to speak through.” He also orders his agent to “deal with his wayward lineage” (Aka, Rey’s parents).

* 25 ABY: Book of Bobba series.

- By now Palpatine and Snoke have collectively used their voices to lure Ben Solo to the darkside, and Luke’s temple is left in ruin. Din Jarin makes an appearance, as he wants Grogu found. He and Bobba are confronted by Luke, who simply tells them that, for Grogu’s sake, they must cease their search. However, he eventually relents, and takes only Din to see his son like figure. Luke explains that he and his students must move in utmost secrecy, as Snoke’s ability to reach across the galaxy and connect his mind to others is uncanny.

- We get a flashback of Luke confronting Snoke immediately after the destruction of his temple in an effort to get Ben back. There’s a cool fight, in which Snoke is badly injured, but ultimately Luke is forced to retreat without Ben. Snoke reins destruction down on every place he thinks Luke his hiding, which brings Luke to the conclusion that he must not only go into hiding, but also give reason for Snoke chase him, without feeling a need to blow innocent people up in mass. Thus the map to Luke Skywalker, and his isolation began.

- As a bonus, it would be cool if Han, Luke, and Bobba became an unlikely team to address the threat of a common enemy. Personally I like the idea of evil Mace Windu. But we’ll see.

- Han and Lando also meet up at some point, and talk about how both of them lost a child to Snoke, with Ben having been turned, and Lando’s daughter having been kidnapped.

- The series ends with Palpatine talking to Snoke on Exegol again. He tells him that he realizes he has a granddaughter, one who wasn’t a “disappointment like her father.” He explains to Snoke they can use her to fully resurrect him via a sith ritual (as his current form is still blind and corpse like). He also instructs Snoke to bring him Ben, as he is “ready to see his new apprentice.” However, Snoke realizes that even though he and the Emperor speak through each other, and have their thoughts overlap, that he is still far more than just a puppet. So he reminds Palpatine not only of the rule of two, but also that for as much as Palpatine made him, he also made Palpatine. And while Palpatine’s growth was slow, his was complete. And now that he had an apprentice, he didn’t need him. So Snoke, despite Palpatin’s protests and claim to authority over him, disables Palpatine’s reformation process, which traps him as the near talking corpse we see in ROS. He tells him that he won’t kill him if he continues to oversee the operations of Exegol, and doesn’t try anything funny. He then leaves, to take complete and total control of the First Order.

* 30 ABY: Rangers of the New Republic.

- Snoke is in full swing with his attempt to take over the galaxy. However, his efforts are scattered and constantly distracted by his obsession to find and kill Skywalker. Ever since their fight which left Snoke physically and emotionally vulnerable (not that he’d ever admit it) Snoke’s mind was bent on revenge. He was certain the mere existence of Skywalker would see everything he had worked for to be undone. We get some scenes (both current and flashbacks) of just how cruel the Supreme Leader was/is to his apprentice (Just to make his death in TLJ not only surprising, but feel like a good pay off). Snoke’s obsession with finding the map to Skywalker, draws attention to its existence for the show’s heroes. They find it and, with R2D2′s help, and arrive on Luke’s island.

- As I described in another post, Luke puts on an act to try and make them leave and think nothing of him being there. And although much of this is because of Luke’s emotional suffering, it is also an evaluation. Through it, the Jedi Master quickly realizes that the ranger’s aren’t asking for him to be a public symbol of hope (as he can no longer do that for the above mentioned reasons) but someone who can accomplish a critical mission that would be impossible for anyone else. Luke explains a little bit more as to why he was isolated, why he had to be so careful, and why he won’t be trying to make a Jedi order anytime soon. But at the end of the day, he states that he would never actually abandon the galaxy to Snoke, and that this wasn’t the first time he’s snuck off to handle matters like this. And so we get another fun mission episode with Luke. During the mission, Luke recovers a file on a stormtrooper (who we see to be Jannah). He makes mention that Lando never gave up going to “all kinds of strange places in the galaxy” to find his lost daughter. Sensing through the force that this trooper might be the one, he takes the information.

- At the end of the mission, Luke mindwipes the rangers’ memories of finding and working with him, and sends the file information about Jannah to Lando, and the map fragment out once again to distract Snoke, and guide the right people to him. Luke returns to the island. We see that the strain of having to turn on his force abilities for a mission, only to turn them off again right away to prevent Snoke from finding him, causes serious toll on his body.

- We get a scene where Snoke asks if the agent who had killed the Emperor’s son had ever been found. To which no is the answer. Snoke is agitated, but ultimately dismissive of this, and simply assures those around him that if he ever encountered the one he believed to be the Emperor’s granddaughter, he would see to it that she died. This would ensure that the phantom clone of Palpatine could never rise high enough to challenge his position as Supreme Leader.

(I’m sure I’ll think of more to add to this. But these are the big ones for now: Establish First Order --> Make Snoke an actual character --> Establish the phantom Emperor --> Show that Luke hadn’t actually given up --> Solidify Rey’s lineage --> Make Lando not come off as a creeper).

#star wars #lando calrissian #jannah #luke skywalker #kylo ren #ben solo #book of boba fett #rangers of the new republic #ahsoka series #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 3 #snoke #supreme leader snoke

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lady-divine-writes · 6 years ago

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Coldflash one-shot - “Illusion” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Barry needs to find a way to fix things. To change things between him and Len. To stop the inevitable. But as smart as Barry is, with all of his super powers, are there some things that just can't be changed?

Notes: This is kind of a re-write of a one-shot I wrote for another fandom. Also, it has a twist to it, so you've been warned.

Read on AO3.

Pop …

Sizzle …

Crackle …

Whir …

The intense silence in the kitchen amplifies the sounds of breakfast cooking, but Barry’s mind has wandered so far from this room, the noise barely chips its way in. He’s working on autopilot, meandering from stove to sink to counter, paying no attention to where his feet land, his hands powered by déjà vu, not a thing pulling his notice – not the bacon, smoking in its oil, needing to be flipped; not the toast, popped in its slots, cooling for over thirty minutes; not the eggs he’s been whisking so fast they’re becoming meringue. A groan from upstairs jars him out of his stupor, and he finally looks down at the bowl of frothy pale yellow on its way to becoming white peaks. He glances over at the staircase, a huge lump settling above his Adam’s apple, then back at his eggs, and sighs. He was never that good at cooking anyway. Most of his adult life has been spent existing off of cold cereal and ramen soup when he wasn’t living with Joe and Iris. Of all his talents as a scientist and a superhero, whipping up pancakes or frying an egg wasn’t among them. Funny since cooking is basically science, a factoid that his boyfriend points out every morning Barry overcooks oatmeal.

Just this once, for this breakfast, Barry had wanted to get something right.

Labored footsteps cross the floor overhead and Barry continues whisking. He’s in no danger of making anything out of the eggs at this point, but he can’t think of anything better to do. It’s not actually about the breakfast, it’s about this moment. He’s been waiting all morning for it, and now that it’s arrived, he’s not ready to face it.

Thunk, thunk, thunk – the sound of one-hundred seventy pounds of lean muscle making its way to the kitchen kicks Barry into overdrive. He zips around, collecting up the edible elements of the meal and laying them out on the table. If he’d been searching for self-satisfaction, he’d have to admit that the spread he comes up with – a stack of toast and another of waffles, the original pound of unburnt bacon, and a farmer’s market worth of diced fruit – is impressive, especially considering he doesn’t remember making any of it.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Len grumbles to the streak of red lightning serving up food. “The infamous Flash making breakfast for little ol’ me? Whatcha tryin’a do, Red? Fatten me up before you drag me off to Iron Heights? My last decent meal as a free man?” He runs a hand over his shaved head, suspiciously side-eyeing the wall clock as he makes his way to the table. “12:30? So, either you let me sleep late on purpose or you’re still not talking to me.” He takes a seat, reclining with his arms locked behind his head. Silver-blue eyes watch Barry hop between pans on the stove, preparing what looks like a colossal meal.

Big meals mean people, and Len’s not exactly in the mood.

“Are you expecting guests for breakfast, Red? Iris? Joe? The CCPD, perhaps?”

“No,” Barry says, cursing the hoarseness in his voice. He turns off the bacon, gives up on the eggs, and sets two empty plates down on the table. Barry has yet to look at Len, spread out in his chair, observing him curiously. He’s been on the edge of tears all morning and if he looks at his face, that smug smile and those mischievous blue eyes, he’s not going to make it through breakfast. Crap! He should have done this another day.

“So, you’re not still mad at me for last night’s little escapade?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

“Even after I did something you expressly told me not to do? Something you said would destroy our relationship if I did?”

“Yes.”

Len’s eyelids narrow. “What about everything you said last night …?”

“I don’t care about that!” Barry slams his hand on the table hard, catching the lip of his plate and smashing it to bits. “I don’t care about any of it! Just forget it! Please? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for what I said, for every fight we ever had! Please, just …!”

"Barry?” Len gets up from his chair and takes Barry’s hand, bleeding from a long cut down the palm. It’s also healing up fast, pushing pieces of ceramic out of his skin as it does. But Len still leads him to the sink to wash it off. “Barry, what’s going on with you? You’re acting like a moody teenager. You’re usually not this weepy over me pulling a job. You’re usually more punchy and jabby.”

“I don’t like this,” Barry admits, looking Len in the eyes for the first time since he came down to breakfast. “I don’t like what’s going on. I haven’t for a while, and I don’t … I’m having a hard time handling it.”

“And what’s that?” Len asks, lips pinched tight in defiance even though his eyes still brim with concern. “You and me? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“No, Len!” A tired breath accompanies Barry’s words because it always comes back to this. No matter what the argument, Len brings it back to them being together as Barry’s ultimate issue, as if running off on the Waverider at a moment’s notice to places unknown where Barry can’t contact him only to come home and pull jobs he swore off, with Barry eventually hunting him down to make sure he doesn’t end up dead – or arrested - would be less stressful than the two of them being together as a regular, every day couple. But that’s not how Len thinks. The everyday and the normal seem to be more of a burden to him than the shit he puts Barry through. “I … I just … I’m scared, Len! Scared you’ll walk out the door one day to a place I can’t go, I can’t find, and never come back! I don’t think I could handle it if you disappeared – blinked out of existence on another Earth or in another dimension!”

Len grins, his tight lips and concerned eyes melting into a cocky grin. “Oh, baby. We’ve been over this. I’m invincible, remember?”

Barry stares at his boyfriend, tears and screams and pleas threatening to split his skull, begging Len to see the truth. But Barry knows it’s no use. Nothing he can do, nothing he can say, will ever change what happens next.

Barry was right. He picked the wrong time for this.

“Yeah,” Barry sniffs sarcastically. “Yeah. You’re invincible.”

Len wraps his arms around Barry’s shoulders, confident he’s won this argument. And, of course, that means to the winner go the spoils.

“Say,” he starts, and Barry sighs, knowing where the conversation goes from here, “I know you spent all morning on this fantastic breakfast, but whaddya say you and I leave it for now, go upstairs, and maybe work up an appetite?”

Barry takes another look at Len’s handsome face, longer than the last, and shakes his head.

“Not today.” He takes a step back, the confusion on Len’s face heartbreaking, but Barry can’t. Not today. “Gideon? Pause simulation.”

“As you wish, Mr. Allen,” the melodic voice of the AI responds. The scene around him shifts, goes fuzzy. Except for Len’s face, which is crystal clear everywhere for Barry – here in STAR Labs and in his memory. Those memories have haunted Barry ever since the day the Waverider came back without Leonard Snart. Barry has been reliving those days within the confines of this program he’s created, mostly out of guilt, drudging up the details of how they left one another – Barry seething over a heist that didn’t matter in the long run, and Len, self-righteous as always, taking off without so much as a goodbye. Because Len wholeheartedly did believe he was invincible. He never would have conceived of the Waverider returning to Earth without him on it.

But what could Barry have done? How could he have changed things? If he could nail it down, then go back in time, maybe he could fix it. He created an algorithm inside Gideon’s programming to help him isolate it. He’s giving himself one shot. Considering how badly he tends to mess up timelines, he’d only take the one chance. Two if it seemed warranted.

But he hasn’t gotten to the point where he can will himself to take that next step.

Barry has an eidetic memory. He doesn’t need Gideon to regurgitate the same scenes from his final days with Len over and over until he tears his eyes out. All this is is an exercise in lying to himself. Because as much as he wants Len back, he wouldn’t have said the things he said to his simulation. He wouldn’t have completely absolved him. He couldn’t go against his principles, put the greater good in danger, for the man he loved.

Because Len and the things he did were dangerous.

But is there an alternative? In months of searching, Barry hasn’t found one. He’s not helping anyone by doing this. He’s torturing himself by giving himself hope that Len will come home one day and he can fix things between them.

But Len is gone. Dead and gone.

And Barry, with all his powers and all his talents, will never see him again.

#coldflash #Barry Allen #leonard snart #Captain Cold #The Flash #frankie writes

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firesoulstuff · 7 years ago

Note

Foxfire + “I need to tell you something.”

Sharing a Destiny

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13188444/chapters/30786162

It’s late, but Zari’s been havingtrouble sleeping recently, so she almost doesn’t care. It’s been a few weekssince they took down Mallus, and a rough few weeks at that. First there’sdealing with the aftermath of the battle with Mallus, as he wasn’t what anyonewas expecting. Not to mention that some of them barely made it out alive, andthen to top it all off it was only a few days later that they were fightingKuasa when she suddenly dropped into a seizure. After getting her back to theWaverider Gideon revealed that there was nothing she could do for the woman,but that the timeline was starting to cement without Amaya in her proper placeand thus Kuasa was going to fade out of existence sooner rather than later, aswas Mari.

Needless to say, Amaya was back inZambesi within an hour.

They’ve all been adjusting to herdeparture. Zari misses her; she was one of her closest friend’s on this ship.Nate has been pretty quiet about it, but things between him and Amaya neverreally got back to anything beyond teammates, especially after she startedspending so much time with Mick.

They weren’t dating, notofficially, but the feelings were visible. As the mission against Mallus wenton they spent increasing amounts of time together, and one would have to beboth blind and stupid to miss the longing ways the two looked at each other.Mick was the one who carried Kuasa back to the Waverider after she collapsed,sprinting as if it were one of their own in his arms, not their enemy.

She’s still here, Kuasa, stillunconscious in the med bay. They’ve determined it’s going to take some time forthe timeline to realize Amaya is back where she belongs. They make sure tocheck in on her status at least once a day.

That’s where Zari finds Mick.

He’s hunched over the med bay’scomputer, still dressed from the day, and focused so intently on whatever is onits screen that he hasn’t even noticed her watching him from the doorway.

“How’s she doing?” She finallybreaks the silence and Mick looks over at last, but only for a second before hereturns his focus back to whatever he’s doing.

“Unstable, still.” He grumbles andZari frowns, but it’s a better answer than dead.

“She’ll get better,” she doesn’tknow if she’s looking to reassure him or herself, but it doesn’t much matterconsidering it isn’t working on her and he isn’t paying attention. “Mick,” shetries but still nothing, “Come on, go to sleep. Gideon’s promised to let usknow if anything changes in here. Staring at her charts isn’t going to make herwake up any faster.” She knows reason, while normally a surprisingly efficienttactic with Mick, isn’t going to do her any good here, but she tries anyway.She can’t force him to go to his room and sleep, but he needs to. “I miss hertoo,” she tries, obviously no longer meaning Kuasa, but she still gets nothingfrom Mick.

Heaving a sigh she puts her proteston hold and sinks into the chair beside Kuasa, eyes studying the other woman’ssleeping form. It’s funny, how when she’s asleep and the only thing they haveleft of their friend, she almost doesn’t look deadly.

A grunt from Mick snaps Zari fromher daze; he’s grabbing something from the printer and scribbling somethingelse onto the bottom of it with a pen before folding up what must be anothercopy and slipping it into his pocket.

“Come on,” he orders as he stalkspast her, stopping in the doorway when she doesn’t immediately get up.

“Where are we going?”

“Jump ship,” he answers simply.

“Amaya! Look at this!” With a rollof her eyes Amaya looks over at Foyinsola for the sixth time to see the latest,unfortunate, spider that has been picked up by the little boy. “Look how manylegs it has!”

Eight, for the record. It has eightlegs. Same as the previous five along with every other spider in existence.

“All the better for crawling intoyour ear if you don’t put it down,” she halfheartedly scolds and her youngfriend makes a face at her before returning the arachnid to the dirt.

“I’m going to look over there fortreasure.” He announces and Amaya can’t fight the amused smile on her lips, heis supposed to be helping her wash the clothes but that only lasted about sevenminutes before he lost interest and began playing his imaginary games.

“Just be careful,” She doesn’t mindhim not helping, even if his mother would be having a stroke at the sight ofhim goofing off when he’s supposed to be doing chores. He’s a child, and Amayaintends to allow him to be one while under her watch.

The familiar sound of an enginesuddenly interrupts her thoughts, one that sends a chill down her spine anddraws just as much excitement from her as it does fear. Looking around itdoesn’t take her long to locate the source of the sound; a jump ship from the22nd century isn’t exactly inconspicuous in the middle of theclearing. The hatchway door opens and the sight of both Zari and Mick greetsher, and she just smiles. They smile back, Zari rushing off the small vesselfirst and engulfing her in a tight hug.

“I’ve missed you,” she murmurs intoher ear.

“”I’ve missed you too,” Amayareturns before pulling back and moving to hug Mick, who holds her almostdesperately.

Not that she isn’t holding to himwith an equal grip.

“What’s going on?” She asks as soonas she pulls away from Mick. “Are Kuasa and Mari-?”

“They’re fine,” Zari interrupts,before looking at Mick as though for confirmation, but not waiting for it andinstead deciding to continue. “The timeline is still being sorted out, butthey’re going to be ok.”

Amaya exhales a breath of relief atthat; feeling like a huge weight has left her shoulders. She hasn’t met anyonesince returning home, even if it hasn’t been very long it’s still been worryingher that she may have accidently missed her chance, that she may have alreadycost her daughter and granddaughters’ their existences by traveling throughtime when she did.

But, if her granddaughters areindeed fine, that means her friends must have another reason for being here.

“Guys,” she starts, sadly.“Whatever is going on, I can’t get back on that ship.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Zariquickly assures her, looking up at Mick again and then back to Amaya. “I’mjust… I’m just dropping him off.”

She looks like she wants to cry,which is definitely not like Zari, and then even stranger she turns and givesMick a hug that he returns.

“Take care of yourself, ok?” Sheasks of him as they pull apart and he nods, asking her to take care of the teamin return. With an awkward wave and a quick “bye” Zari then heads back to thejump ship, leaving a very confused Amaya behind her.

Along with Mick.

“Mick-” She cuts herself off,because she has no idea what to say, or what’s going on for that matter. “Youcan’t be here.” She finally decides on. It was hard to leave the team, butalmost impossible to leave him. She can’t deny the road they were starting togo down, nor can she deny how badly she wanted to go there. But destiny hasother plans for her, no matter how much it might hurt.

“I need to tell you something,” hesays, looking almost uncomfortable and yet hopeful all at once. “After youleft,” he starts, “Kuasa didn’t get much better-”

“But Zari said-” She starts tointerrupt but stops when he holds up a hand.

“She’s still there, but Gideonhasn’t been able to stabilize her. Couldn’t figure out why, then I startedthinking about the place you and me both knew we wanted to go if you could’vestayed-”

“Mick,” she’s desperate to not lethim finish, to not have to tell him againall the reasons they can’t be together.

“So I went to the med bay, and Iran a test.” He says; set on not letting her stop him from saying whatever itis he’s insisted he needs to. He does, however, pause for a second, pulling apaper from the pocket of his jacket and carefully unfolding it before handingit to her.

He remains quiet while she readsit, once and then twice, trying to understand what it is. It’s a sheet ofnumbers, and abbreviations, and names. Two names actually, his and Kuasa’s.There are words on the paper as well, words that she understands but her brainwon’t process, because it would mean… it would mean something impossible.

“Guess she needs both hergrandparents in 1942 to get stable.”

Amaya could swear that her hearthas stopped.

Mick is Kuasa and Mari’sgrandfather.

Mick is her daughter’s father.

Mick, she can be with Mick. Theuniverse is going to allow her that.

Without thinking through what she’sdoing Amaya finds herself laughing and grabbing him by the lapels of hisjacket, crashing her lips onto his. She feels him smiling into the kiss andfeels his hands grab onto her hips, and it all feels so much better than anyother time she’s kissed him before because this time she knows it will last.

By the time she pulls back from thekiss, breathless, they’re both grinning from ear to ear.

“And you’re ok with this?” She hasto ask, despite knowing that he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.

“Course I am,” He promises her,pressing another kiss to her forehead. “More than ok, I can’t wait.”

She can’t help but to giggle athim, because this is all still a little surreal to her. She doesn’t have toleave Mick behind.

“Alright,” a new, and rather annoyedsounding, voice demands and cuts through their little haze of a reunion and hasthem both noticing that Zari has returned, dragging a giggling Foyinsola behindher. “Whose responsible for my stowaway?”

#DC's Legends of Tomorrow #amaya jiwe #mick rory #foxfire #mixen #writing prompts

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eighthdoctor · 7 years ago

Note

1, 3, 6, and 8 for the fic ask meme?

1. What’s your personal favourite thing you wrote this year?

Of the shit I published: you yourselves were once foreigners, which is supposed to be the first chapter of a history-spanning exploration of what it means to be magical/non-magical and currently pokes the Expulsion from Spain and tries to draw something out of that.

Of the shit I didn’t: Circumnavigation and Reg fic continue and are both getting really close to some form of completion so! Those are exciting!

If you’re looking for a specific passage:

"Wait,"Serena said on impulse.

Xorlilhesitated and looked at her. For the first time--and remembering herconversation with Chlatoni so many days before--Serena saw howvulnerable Xorlil was and how awkward she was at this.

Serenaswallowed. In the Enclosure, there were rituals and patterns ofcourtship. But she had not been in the Enclosure for a long time. "Iliked the kiss," she said quietly.

Slowly,Xorlil smiled, and then bent down and kissed her again.

(circumnavigation, part 3, featuring “sleeping together for warmth” and “poor communication kills (other people)” and “the roadtrip from hell”)

3. Which of your fics was most different from what you usually write?

Family Motto which is a) a legit oneshot and not connected to something larger and b) non-chronological, which I struggle with and c) not queer

6. What’s your favourite piece of dialogue you wrote this year?

mmm struggled here because I wrote so fucking much (250k??) and a lot of the Reg fic is spoilers. but here’s a bit, where Reg is extremely badly lurking in a order of the phoenix meet-up circa 1980:

“Anyway, Alice, quit insulting our sister,” Gideon said.

Marshall looked like she’d rather not have been drawn back into the conversation. “Do you disagree that it would be unfair to set Molly on Lily?”

The Prewetts looked at each other and then said in unison, “No.”

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be funny though,” Fabian added. “You were complaining, we were just trying to help.”

If that was supposed to be innocent, Regulus thought, the Prewett twins would do an excellent job in the used broom business.

Gideon looked maliciously delighted. “Besides, won’t you need Molly’s help yourself soon?”

“Go sit on a wand,” Marshall said, making the twins roar with laughter. “We didn’t want anyone to know, how did you—”

“You haven’t taken a drink.” Fabian gestured at the empty place in front of her. “Nothing to drink, nothing to eat. Not for nothing are we Molly’s brothers.”

Regulus arrived at the conclusion only slightly behind Dearborn. “You’ve been in the field!” Dearborn shouted, loud enough for people at two other tables to look over. “Merlin’s balls, Alice, you could have been hit!”

“There are children present!” the Prewetts said in tones of mock offense spoiled by unconcealed grins.

Marshall was a brilliant red. “I’m not married,” she said crisply. “We were waiting for—”

“What would have happened if you got hit?” Dearborn was very nearly as red. “You think I need you so bad that—”

Longbottom, normally even keeled for a Gryffindor, looked very close to losing his own temper. “I think this was a choice we made that you had no part in and no right to,” he said in a low tone, “and in the end, no harm done.”

8. Which fic this year was most fun to write?

absolutely have 3.5k written on a lotr au where galadriel takes the ring and it is ridic fun and self indulgent

#circumnavigation #thatwitchrevan

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stunudo · 7 years ago

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Just Because

I wanted to make something funny and @reidbyers posted this fun Sentence Starters list. So blame Jen for this... J/K I tried to get them all. This is the most shit post ever... Now I am paranoid I have read something like this before. Oh well.

Penelope had gathered everyone together for an impromptu “Team Building Seminar” at a local bar & grille. The establishment had a western theme, so she had somehow bamboozled an assortment of child-sized cowboy and cowgirl hats for the team to wear. The BAU team: Hotch, Rossi, Reid, JJ, Prentiss and her one and only Boo-thang Derek Morgan were all there seated around a banquet sized table in a private room next to the kitchen.

“Attention. I need attention.” Garcia began, her bright pink hat, nestled at an intentional angle on her curly head. The team was not getting the point, so she held up her toy pistol and shot the cap gun off. *snap* *snap*

Six sets of eyes slowly made their way to their hostess and tech analyst.

“Baby Girl, is 'no' an emotion? Because I'm feeling it." Derek teased from his lazy perch next to Rossi. He had kindly wore his black and silver cowboy hat at an angle like hers, but what he was really excited to wear was the Bolo tie.

Garcia rolled her eyes and tried to get the group back in line. “Guys, we are starting with a round of questions. Just quick responses, don’t think too hard. Almost like word association.” She looked around the table, ensuring everyone was playing along. “ Which layer of hell do you think you're going to?”

“Seven.” Derek shouted out, rather robustly. Reid looked at him, impressed that he knew the circles and had chosen a decently appropriate one. Spencer had to readjust his purple cowboy hat again, it kept on slipping. But actually it was JJ and Emily lightly tapping it from either side of him.

“Ninth,” mumbled Prentiss.

“Definitely sixth for me, too much sway with the press,” JJ admitted, taking a long pull off her pint.

“I don’t believe in hell, but if I did I think I would be banished to the second circle.” Reid pondered.

“Reid? Isn’t that the sexy one?” Garcia’s mouth was hanging open. “Nevermind, moving on: I am going with circle 8, hacking is kind of a multifaceted dominion.”

Everyone turned to look at Rossi for his answer, but he was looking at his phone screen. Derek nudged the older man.

“Oh, sorry. If a conversation goes on too long without being about me, I'm out.” He explained. Garcia nodded, but kept the exercises coming.

“I am going to start with a question and I want you guys to build a conversation around it. Only one sentence and then it’s the next person’s turn.”

Garcia flipped through her index cards, they were electric green. She grinned when she found the question she was looking for, she turned to Hotch at the head of the table.

“Sir, you start then we will finish going clockwise.” Everyone nodded. "Are we just friends or is this flirting serious?"

Without missing a beat or loosening his gold sequenced cowboy hat, Hotch replied, “Contrary to popular belief I'm actually soft and have feelings.”

It was now JJ’s turn, “Why fall in love when you can fall on the floor and never get up?"

Reid was not quite getting the game, he looked around the room at his team mates’ faces and thought for a minute, maybe longer. "I don't wanna get involved in drama I just wanna know 103% of the information on what happened."

Emily slapped the table in a muted fit of laughter, "Fill your heart with bees. If someone breaks your heart then they have to deal with the bees."

Derek shook his head at her inappropriate outburst, “I panic a lot of other places besides the disco."

Rossi was looking at the room full of the Bureau’s finest and he couldn’t take it anymore, "All this sadness is bad for my skin."

Garcia hustled over to the senior agent and patted him on the back, the crocodile tears were shaking his frame. "Bro, you look so cute right now. Dude, you are so fucking adorable." She was so proud of the progress the question had brought about the team, she kept the game going. "I think I'm subconsciously trying to ruin my own life."

Hotch stood up and flipped his chair backwards, so he could straddle it. As he tossed his hat aside, he tossed his very short locks, "I don't want to look 'pretty', I want to look otherworldly and vaguely threatening."

JJ held her heart at Hotch’s honesty, "I may act like I'm sassy but if you're mean to me there's a 900% chance I'll cry."

Reid patted JJ’s back, slyly making a knot in her hair with her cowgirl hat’s drawstring. “Drugs? No thanks, the only 'high' I need is the natural rush you get from committing a murder."

Emily slid her chair closer to Derek and looked him right in his knowing eyes, "Why can't I be mentally chill instead of mentally ill?" Derek grabbed her hands in comfort.

“I may be ugly but at least I have an ugly personality too. Consistency is key." The dark agent took a generous sip from his beer.

Rossi was now pacing the room, his hat trailing behind him like a cape. "I could win an Olympic gold medal in being ignored." Garcia had sat down in Rossi’s abandoned chair, putting her feet onto Derek’s lap. "What about netflix and kill?"

Hotch had been doing the chair routine from Flash dance as the team continued the training exercise. After he didn’t have a bucket of water to drop on himself, Reid grabbed the pitcher of beer to complete the choreography. “ Sorry for being awesome, loser." He spat at Reid, who didn’t know if he should clap or bow at their boss’s performance.

"Girls are so soft and amazing and nice and beautiful and mysterious and complex and loving and caring. I don't remember what I was going to say but I'm just gay." JJ had started talking as she kicked the chair that Reid had left towards Emily. Emily was ignoring her while she continued to comfort Morgan. Reid quickly returned with his abused chair, sitting beside Hotch, trying to mimic his stance.

“My kink is being right." He offered to his boss.

Emily barely controlled her laugh, cradling Derek’s bald head in her lap. "I am bysexual as in I'm not interested, goodbye." Derek was crying too hard to take his turn.

Rossi shouted his answer from the corner where he was now trying to get the waitress’s number. "My kink is being home alone."

Hotch had to put Reid in his place, the kid just didn’t have the skills to master the seminal 80s dance routine. "You're really sensitive for a selfish asshole." as Reid was starting to pout.

"No offense but why does everyone hate me?" Gideon said over speakerphone. JJ was angrily shredding straw wrappers and also trying to talk Reid down from actually groveling at Hotch’s wing-tips."I'm small, queer and something to fear."

Reid stormed off, crossing his arms over his chest in defiance. He tapped his toe, waiting for Hotch’s apology. "I'm a strong independent introvert who don't need no social life."

Emily looked over the puddles of spilled drinks and empty beer bottles, as if seeing JJ for the first time. "She's beauty, she's grace, she's me."

Derek sat up, realizing Emily wasn’t in the comforting kink anymore. "I'm cute and perfect but also unstable, violent and self-destructive"

Garcia decided she should begin to wrap up the activity, too many people had left the table. Besides the next booking, a Bat Mitzvah, the family had begun bringing in decorations. "I'm beautiful and underappreciated."

Rossi was kissing the neck of the waitress in the corner, slipping the young Jewish kid a twenty to take pictures. "To be honest I just need a hug."

Hotch was refusing to apologize to Reid, but he did know what would cheer him up. "Wanna watch this murder documentary with me?" He proudly held up his phone, teasing Reid’s curiosity.

JJ was sending spit wads across the table at Morgan while Emily kept score."I may act like I'm clueless but actually know what's going on at all times."

Reid gave in and mumbled, "I try not to sound like an asshole but it's really hard because I am an asshole," to Hotch, who let him sit on his lap to finish the You Tube video together.

Emily looked between Derek and JJ’s turf war and shrugged her shoulders. “This could be less hetero.”

Derek clapped as JJ spiked another mushy ball into his glass. "I can tell myself to be heartless but in all reality, I have a big heart and can't treat people badly, that's just not me."

Penelope was in the corner, prying hand-sy Rossi off of the help. The waitress whined at the blonde, “Please! I'm so tired of not being a multimillionaire." She held out her hands in longing as the surprising strong tech angel pushed her back into the hallway.

Garcia stomped her feet in frustration. The team was a mess, they hadn’t even kept their hats on. Well except for JJ and Reid, but she was pretty sure she would have to cut JJ’s hat out of her hair later. “Guys? I'd love to relax but that's just not realistic."

Everyone stopped where they were. Hotch and Reid were watching the gag reel at the end of the documentary. JJ had won Emily in the battle of the spitballs, so she held her over her shoulder like a caveman and a fresh meal. Derek was trying to catch Rossi’s attention, because the Jewish kid was still recording with the famous author’s phone. Rossi was preening, trying to straighten his cowboy ensemble after his make out session.

Reid trembled at being chastised, again. "I don't have a nervous system. I'm a nervous system."

Hotch patted the thin man’s back, trying to console him. "I have this problem where I isolate myself from civilization and then get upset because I'm lonely."

Derek walked over to comfort Hotch now, "I'm the nicest, sweetest, most rage-filled person I know."

Emily was really annoyed at being carried around the room by now. "Why do I get struggles instead of snuggles?"

Rossi nodded at Garcia, she was done with this HR mandated crap fest. He graciously footed the bill and left.

Garcia stormed off closely behind the BAU veteran. Calling behind her back, "This is it, this is how I die: Lack of attention."

#i am so bored #Criminal Minds #shitpost #lol #what did i just do #sorry if you wrote something like this #my brain feels like it read something similiar #i read too much fanfic

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minijenn · 8 years ago

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Universe Falls, Chapter 30, Part 1

Woo boy kids here we go! Dreamscaperers is finally here! I honestly had such a blast writing this one, even if it felt like it took forever. But I’m so glad its finally finished and I can share it with you all! So, enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/157063740644/universe-falls-chapter-29

Chapter 30, Part 1: Dreamscaperers

19-1-23 8-9-19 15-23-14 4-9-13-5-14-19-9-15-14 2-21-18-14 13-9-19-19-5-19 8-15-13-5 1-14-4 3-1-14'20 18-5-20-21-18-14 19-1-25-19 8-5'19 8-1-16-16-25, 8-5'19 1 12-9-1-18 2-12-1-13-5 20-8-5 1-18-19-15-14 6-15-18 20-8-5 6-9-18-5

It was an unusually gloomy day in Gravity Falls, with the skies hanging dull and overcast and covered in clouds that were more than likely saturated in oncoming rain. A few sparse showers had already fallen that morning, dampening everything just enough that so much as trying to walk outside would result in a rather muddy mess. It was for this reason that Dipper, Mabel, and Steven had taken to the shack’s attic to hang out for the afternoon. Seeing as how the Gems were gone for the day on a mission and the shack was bereft of business, the kids had relatively no obligations, which meant they were free to do whatever they pleased to occupy their time. Including engaging in a rousing, albeit a bit one-sided game of picture charades.

“Ok! It’s done!” Mabel exclaimed, grinning widely as she presented her drawing to the boys. They both looked over it quietly, taking in her rather sloppy and haphazard jumble of images in for a moment before Dipper finally shook his head in defeat.

“Mabel, I have no idea what any of that is,” he admitted with a frown.

“Aw, come on! Just guess something!” Mabel encouraged, tapping her pencil against the page.

“Hm…” Steven mused thoughtfully, looking to the drawings once more. “Is it… a calculator!”

Mabel gasped in excitement, nodding vigorously as she glanced at her own rough sketch of a cow, a cue tip, and a person waving. “Yeah it is! Good job, Steven!”

“Eh, it was kinda obvious,” the young Gem shrugged with a grin.

“Ok, seriously?” Dipper asked with slight disbelief. “How are you guys beating me so badly at this?”

“Oh don’t feel bad, Dipper,” Mabel reassured with a smirk. “Me and Steven just have the same kind of special ‘art sensibilities’, right?”

“Right,” Steven nodded. “I mean, Mabel was able to guess that my drawing was a laptop, so that must mean something!” He held up his own sketch, which was of waves crashing onto the shore and a blouse.

Dipper simply looked between the two of them with slight confusion before reaching an apt conclusion. “I… don’t think either of you guys are really playing this right…”

Before Steven or Mabel could argue their case, their game was suddenly interrupted as Stan called up to them from downstairs. “Kids! Come quick!” Curious to see what the fuss was about, the trio hurried downstairs Stan sitting before the TV wearing only his boxers and an undershirt and a wide grin of amusement. “I need you to laugh at this with me!” he chuckled, nodding to the ad playing on screen, which just so happened to be for the Tent of Telepathy.

“Who’s cute as a button, and always you friend?” Gideon sang in his usual schmaltzy way, putting on a charming smile and a folksy dance. “Lil’ G-I-D to the E-O-N! Wink!” he exclaimed, giving a sly wink to the viewing audience as a voiceover from Bud cheerfully repeated his son’s name: “Lil’ Gideon!”

“Ugh, Gideon,” Dipper groaned in annoyance, rolling his eyes.

“Remember when I wouldn’t date him and he tried to destroy us?” Mabel asked with equal disdain.

“Or the time he forced all my Watermelon Stevens to try and destroy the Gems?” Steven asked with a frown that quickly turned tearful as he recalled the experience. “Oh, Baby Melon, may you rest in peace—er, pieces.”

“He’s always trying to trick me into losing the Mystery Shack,” Stan scowled. “Not to mention how he nearly got me and Amethyst arrested the other night.”

“Uh, actually, I think you and Amethyst nearly got yourselves arrested,” Dipper pointed out.

“Don’t change the subject!” Stan snapped. “That doesn’t change the fact that Gideon’s still a creepy little punk.”

“Seriously though,” Wendy agreed as she stepped into the room with Soos. “One time I caught him stealing my moisturizer.”

“And yet, our mutual hatred for him bonds us together,” the handyman concluded, eliciting agreeing nods from almost everybody. Their collective attention was caught by the television once again, as Gideon’s ad came to an end.

“Come on down to Lil’ Gideon’s Tent of Telepathy!” Bud’s voiceover exclaimed. “Opening soon at this location.” The shot suddenly changed to the Mystery Shack, strangely enough, though it only remained for a second before the Tent of Telepathy fell smack on top of it, crushing the shack completely. Likewise a wrecking ball smashed into the Gem temple in the background, ramming into its face and crumbling it apart instantly.

“Oh my gosh!” Steven gasped in alarmed horror. “The temple! And the Mystery Shack! Oh this is terrible! How did Gideon do that while we were all standing in here?!”

“He didn’t, Steven, it was just an effect,” Dipper deadpanned. “Still… should we be worried about that?”

“Please,” Stan said with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “The only way Gideon’s taking over the shack is by breaking in and stealing my deed.”

The abrupt sound of shattering glass instantly startled the entire group the moment they heard it, even if it came from the other room. “You mean like, right now?” Wendy asked in reference to what Stan had just said.

And certainly and timely enough, Gideon had indeed busted into Stan’s office and was already hard at work trying to decipher the combination to the conman’s tightly locked safe. “38? 41?” the child psychic muttered as he frantically turned the lock. “Oh, heavens to betsy!”

“Gideon!” Stan shouted gruffly, standing in the doorframe of the office with his arms crossed sullenly. The kids, Wendy, and Soos were all piled behind him, eager to watch the confrontation that was about to unfold.

“Well, well, Stanford, my arch-nemesis” Gideon smirked deviously as he stood and faced the conman. “Just like the other night, it seems as though we have entered a dangerous game of cat and mouse. But the question remains: who is the cat and who is the-”

“Soos, broom,” Stan said dryly as the conman handed him a broom.

“Oh no, not the broom!” Gideon cried in alarm, especially as the conman charged at him with it. Of course, this soon turned into a rather comical circular chase, as Stan pursued the child psychic with his broom and got a few good whacks in. Gideon attempt to show his dominance by pausing and letting out a harsh hiss, only for Stan to retaliate with two rough swings of his broom, which was finally enough to force him out of the room. The conman quickly managed to chase Gideon out of the shack altogether, making sure to keep his broom on hand as he stood guard at the door to keep him from sneaking back in.

“And stay out, you chump!” Stan exclaimed harshly.

“You mark my words, Stanford!” Gideon began, his hands curled into tight fists as he glared fiercely at his rival. “One day I’m gonna get that combination! Nobody can stop me! Not you, not those bothersome Crystal Gems, not anyone! And once I get that deed, you’ll never see the Mystery Shack again!”

Stan simply rolled his eyes, not taking the petulant child psychic’s threats seriously. “Good luck, bucko,” he remarked sarcastically before slamming the door, leaving Gideon to seethe out in the lightly-falling rain.

Still, Stan did make sure to go back to his safe and check to make sure Gideon hadn’t tampered with the shack’s deed. And, after checking it seeing that it was safe and sound, the conman secured in back inside the safe once more, making sure it was locked tight and far out of the child psychic’s reach. “Heh,” Stan chuckled to himself as he finished up. “The combo to this safe is in the one place he’ll never find it: my brain.”

With a broad grin of satisfaction, the conman left the room to continue lounging, not even noticing the figure still lurking right outside the window. Gideon’s fury had dissolved into a sinister resolve, for despite how crafty Stan might have thought himself to be, the child psychic had a plan. He always did. “Your brain isn’t as safe as you might think, Stanford Pines!” Gideon exclaimed, his dark smirk growing wider as he pulled the second journal out of his suit. “This is the last straw! It’s time to unlock the journal’s greatest secret…”

Gideon’s smile grew practically manic as he found the page he was looking for. For there, nestled amidst countless codes and cryptograms on the rain splattered parchment, was a wheel, demarcated with ten symbols around it, all of them different: from a tree, to a star, to a sword, to gemstones of several varying cuts and still others. But the wheel itself was not what captivated the child psychic’s interest. Rather, it was the mysterious being inside of the wheel, who, according to the journal at least, supposedly possessed power and knowledge all at once.

Only time would tell if that promise carried any weight.

While Gideon’s break in earlier had been something of an eventful distraction, the quiet, dull pace of the day was quick to return, leaving everyone to spend the rest of the gloomy afternoon congregated around the TV downstairs. While Dipper and Wendy reclined boredly on the floor and lazily fired off Nyarf guns at each other, Steven and Mabel sat together on the other side of Stan’s chair and laughed over the funny videos they were watching on the young Gem’s phone. It didn’t take too long for their noisy merriment to start getting on the conman’s nerves as he tried to watch TV over them, to little avail.

“Ugh, that’s it!” Stan exclaimed, glaring at the pair in frustration and immediately silencing their laughter. “Kid, when the heck are you gonna go home?” he asked Steven impatiently. “You’ve been here all day! Normally I don’t care since you runts usually go running around outside, but being cooped up in here and having to put up with both you and Mabel is more than any sane person can take!”

“Aw, but Mr. Pines, the Gems are on a really dangerous mission today,” Steven began to explain. “And Pearl told me to come spend the day down here instead of being all alone at the temple. She said that you owe her and Garnet for what happened with the cops the other night.”

“Oh what, and Amethyst doesn’t?” the conman deadpanned. “She was part of that just as much as much as-” Stan quickly cut himself off however, as he remembered how he had gone to such great lengths to cover for the purple Gem in the first place. “Uh, I mean… never mind. As for you, kid, I guess you can hang out here for a while. But only until the Gems get back and only as long as you both stop trying to give me a headache.”

“Don’t worry, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel reassured brightly. “We’ll be super quiet.” Of course, only a second after she promised this, her hand slipped, resulting in her accidently hitting the play button on Steven’s phone. The loud song that blared over the speaker was enough to rouse Dipper and Wendy from their relative listlessness as well as prompt Stan to confiscate the phone entirely.

“Hey, my phone!” Steven protested, reaching for it even as Stan held it away from him.

“Obviously you two can’t handle the responsibility of- ” the conman paused as he looked over the phone with a confused frown, unfamiliar with the trending technology. “Whatever this weird noise box is. So until you can, I’ll just hold onto it.” Stan’s bewilderment with the phone soon turned to frustration as he kept slamming his finger against it in a futile attempt to get the blaring music to stop. Eventually though, he gave up and handed the phone back to Steven, but only for a moment. “Just as soon as you turn that racket off, first.”

“Well, Grunkle Stan, if we aren’t allowed to watch TubeTube videos, then can we at least watch a movie that we’ll all enjoy instead of… that?” Mabel asked, nodding to the TV as it played a lackluster old western.

“He put the old in ‘old west’.” The TV advertised. “They call him ‘Grandpa the Kid!’”

“I’m tired during the day,” the elderly cowboy on screen grumbled.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I can relate to this!” Stan argued crossly.

“Mr. Pines, Mabel’s right,” Wendy said dryly. “That old junk is boring.”

“It sure is! Which is why I have the perfect suggestion for what we should watch instead!” Mabel grinned widely, holding up a very colorful VHS tape. “Dream Boy High! ‘Where love is on your permanent record’.”

Of course, the others all booed at such a gaudy, pandering suggestion, save for Steven who looked to the cover of Mabel’s tape with his usual fascination. “I don’t know what you guys are booing about,” the young Gem said with a smile. “This movie looks like it’ll be great! Just look at how cool and colorful these guys are!” He exclaimed, pointing to the two young men on the cover, both decked out in the most flashy neon clothes imaginable.

No one really had a chance to argue against this however, as a sudden crash sounded from the kitchen, with Soos scrambling into the room seconds later with a fearful cry. “Dude, there’s a bat in the kitchen! It tried to touch me with its little bat fingers!”

“Don’t worry, I got this under control,” Stan reassured before casually reclining back into his armchair and shirking the task off. “Dipper, take care of it.”

While Mabel chuckled triumphantly over how she didn’t have to handle this unsavory responsibility, Dipper let out a disgruntled scoff, shooting a disbelieving glance at the conman for it. “What? Why can’t Mabel do it?” he asked petulantly.

“Cause life ain’t fair,” Stan shrugged unsympathetically. “Now go fight a bat so we can watch TV.”

“No way, Grunkle Stan!” Dipper protested firmly as he stood between Stan and the TV. “You’re always making me do dumb chores and I’m tired of it! I’m putting my foot down this time!” To emphasize his point, he slammed his foot down on the carpet, hoping that it would show the conman that he meant business.

“Ooooo!” Mabel, Steven, Soos, and Wendy all gasped, intrigued by turn of events. Stan however, was far less amused.

“I said do it, kid,” he ordered harshly. “Now!”

Despite this severe command, Dipper was still adamant, especially as he crossed his arms and stared Stan down, undaunted. Of course, the conman stared right back, and the others all watched the palpable tension steadily build up between the two of them as the scowls they were trading became progressively more irate. However, Stan won out in the end, as Dipper wasn’t able to hold out under his fierce, almost threatening glare for too very long.

“Ok, I’ll do it!” he finally, very begrudgingly agreed, heaving a defeated sigh as he began to head for the kitchen. Steven and Mabel followed after him, curious to see how this would turn out. “Ugh, stupid chores…” Dipper muttered petulantly as he grabbed a saucepan and spoon lying near the kitchen entry.

“You totally got this, Dipper!” Steven encouraged brightly. “The good thing about bats is that they’re really small, but then again… they can fly… which means they might be kinda hard to catch…”

“Just remember,” Mabel cut in with what she believed was much better advice. “Bats are more afraid of you than you are of them.” Dipper didn’t really take either of their well-intentioned, yet misguided help to heart as he simply took in a deep, resolved breath and charged into the kitchen with pan and spoon in hand. “Or maybe I’m thinking of ducklings…” Mabel mused a moment after her brother left.

This correction came too late of course, for before either Steven or Mabel could even peek in and see how Dipper was faring, they quickly were able to glean that from the abrupt clatter in the kitchen. Aside from the noisy explosion of breaking plates, bat screeches, and Dipper’s own frightened cries, a barrage of kitchenware flew out of the room as the pair outside simply stood by, unsure of what to really do.

“Ducklings are so adorable!” Steven obliviously quipped as though nothing had even happened.

“I know, right?” Mabel readily agreed, playfully mimicking one, much to the young Gem’s amusement. “Quack, quack, quack!”

Of course, as soon as the clamor in the kitchen did calm down a bit, Steven and Mabel did head in to check up on Dipper, who had somehow managed to chase the bat outside though not without getting mildly injured in the process. He assured the pair that it was only a few small cuts and bruises, but it was enough to worry both Steven and Mabel enough to get Soos involved. And so, after rounding up what little first aid supplies Stan had on hand in the shack, the three of them got to work on tending to Dipper’s wounds the best they could, much to his chagrin.

“Ow, ow!” Dipper hissed in pain as Soos dabbed disinfectant over the cut on his arm while blithely humming a song he made up about it.

“You know, Dipper, this would be way faster and easier with my healing spit,” Steven pointed out before giving his hand a generous lick. “This stuff will fix you right up!”

“Uh, n-no thanks, Steven…” Dipper quickly rejected, blocking his hurt arm off with a rather uncomfortable frown. “I’m pretty sure I’ll recover just fine without it.”

“Well, ok,” Steven shrugged, not entirely convinced. “But the offer’s still on the table for if you ever have to chase off another bat or something!”

“Uh… right…” Dipper said, glancing away as Mabel finished bandaging the cut on his forehead. “I just don’t get it though. Why does Grunkle Stan always pick on me? Think about it! The more painful or difficult the chore is, the more likely it is I’ll have to do it! Why doesn’t he pick on you guys like that?”

“Pfft, what are you even talking about, bro-bro?” Mabel shook her head. “Stan’s not hard on you, silly! He just likes showing tough love sometimes!”

“Yeah, like when he tells me and the Gems that we’re ‘annoying’ and that we’re ‘the worst neighbors ever’,” Steven remarked innocently. “Amethyst says that’s just Mr. Pines’ way of joking around with us! Which means he must love joking around with us because he says that sort of stuff so much!”

Dipper gave the young Gem a rather puzzled look upon hearing this, knowing that was most certainly not what it meant but not bothering to try and argue against his stilted logic. “Sure, Steven,” he said somewhat sarcastically. “That’s what it means.”

“Dipper, Stan’s personality is just one of life’s great mysteries,” Soos spoke up. “Like whether or not it’s possible to lick your own elbow.”

“I bet you can’t!” Mabel challenged daringly.

“I bet I can!” Soos exclaimed boldly, already trying to do so, much to Steven and Mabel’s shared amusement.

“Lick it! Lick it! Lick it!” they chanted excitedly, following Soos out of the room and leaving Dipper behind. He let out a frustrated sigh, especially as he happened to glance over at Stan’s picture hanging on the nearby wall. Regardless of what Steven and Mabel had said, Dipper was still convinced that the conman had a generally low opinion of him, though for what reason, he really didn’t understand. Then again, he supposed it did make some sense. Especially seeing as how even from the very beginning of the summer, Dipper had never really hit it off with Stan in the way Mabel had. But then again, was that really any excuse for the conman to treat him with such blatant disrespect?”

“The sink’s clogged!” Stan yelled from the other room. “Dipper! Get in here and fix it!”

Of course, this stoic command only managed to aggravate Dipper even more, as well as give him even more tangible evidence for Stan’s clear contempt for him. Which was why, out of sheer vexation, he grabbed the Nyraf gun lying on the nearby table and fired a suction-cup projectile at the conman’s portrait, watching with muted satisfaction as it struck him right between the eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of the woods, a nearly identical photo of Stan sat, defaced with a red ‘x’ over his eyes and a ring of glowing candles around it. Gideon smirked cunningly as he put his match out, journal 2 resting in his free hand and turned open to the exact page he needed for his treacherous plans.

“You think that combination’s safe in your mind, Stanford?” the child psychic asked rhetorically, running a hand over the summoning spell on the open page. “We’ll see what my new minion has to say about that!” Still using the journal as a guide, Gideon stood before the circle of candles as he began reciting the spell word for word. “Triangulum, entangulum. Vene foris dominus mentum. Vene foris videntis omnium!”

While Gideon believed he would go relatively unnoticed in carrying out his scheme, what he hadn’t counted on was that Mabel, Steven, and Soos had taken to the front lawn of the shack. The kids took immense enjoyment out of watching the handyman’s continued albeit fruitless attempts to lick his elbow, yet despite that, they still cheered him on all the while.

“Lick that elbow! Lick that elbow!” Mabel and Steven cheered in pumped unison, only for Soos to finally sigh in defeat as he stopped straining to reach.

“Like the infinite horizon, it eludes my grasp,” he admitted with a frown as Steven and Mabel simply chuckled. However, the levity was soon cut short as a very familiar laugh sounded from the forest nearby.

“What was that?” Steven asked, looking to the woods curiously.

“Wait…” Mabel paused as the devious chuckle continued. “Is that who I think it is?”

After exchanging an inquisitive glance, the trio decided to go investigate, only to find the source of the laughter in a clearing not too far away. They stayed at the fringe of the clearing however, tucking behind the bushes just out of sight of the child psychic at the center of it. “Ugh, Gideon?” Mabel asked with apt disgust. “What’s he still doing here?”

“Whoa, dudes, looks like something’s up with him,” Soos noted, referring to how the child psychic was doubled over and trembling as he let out a load groan.

“Maybe we should go see if he’s ok?” Steven suggested with his usual stain of empathy.

Mabel was more than prepared to shoot that idea down, but the group was surprised into silence as Gideon collapsed to his knees and let out an indecipherable, admittedly unnerving chant. “Egassem sdrawkcab. egassem sdrawkcab. Egassem sdrawkcab! Egassem sdrawkcab! Egassem sdrawkcab!” With each nonsense word, the child psychic’s voice grew louder, his eyes enveloped in a bright blue glow that completely hid his pupils. In a sudden flash, the entire world seemed to drain of all color, resorting to a dull, grayscale pallet. The clouds in the sky overhead seemed to be flying by at an alarming rate while the rest of the world just seemed to freeze, save for Gideon and the trio eavesdropping on him. All three of them continued watching what was unfolding with unshakable fear, even if they had no idea what they were supposed to really be afraid of.

Out of nowhere, another bright flash dotted the sky before the child psychic and out of it, a triangular shape began to emerge. As it scaled to a medium size, it turned dark with what seemed like a starry spacescape, only for an outline of flames to burst around it seconds later. As a large, singular eye appeared in the center of the triangle, it began to, of all things, laugh. It was a strange, nasally laugh that was somehow both annoying and intimidating all at once, and carried the faintest hint of sadism in it for good measure. Frightened and bewildered by the appearance of this strange new entity, Mabel, Steven, and Soos all made sure to tuck down behind the bush just so they could remain out of its singular-eyed sight. Even Gideon backed up a bit, suddenly unsettled by the creature he had managed to summon based on just its laughter alone. But soon enough, the triangular being made his full appearance known as the flames around him died out and more physical details emerged, including thin black arms and legs, a tall, narrow top hat, and a petite bowtie just below his eye. A deceptively simple and unassuming appearance for a creature that was supposed to be “all knowing”.

“Oh, Gravity Falls! It is good to be back!” the being exclaimed in his pitchy, somewhat echoey voice as he glanced around. “Haven’t seen this old place since that night I shook those four space rocks up years ago! But I’ll spare you the boring details on all that. Spoilers, ya know.” With his hands casually placed on his hips—or rather, his edges, he glided down to float directly before Gideon, who could only gape at him, dumbfounded. “Name’s Bill Cipher,” he introduced himself. “And I take it you’re some kind of living ventriloquist dummy. Ha! Just kidding! I know who you are, Gideon!”

“W-what are you?!” the child psychic asked with apt nervousness. “And h-how did you know my name?”

“Oh, I know lots of things!” Bill exclaimed brightly, though his tone quickly turned dark and deep as a plethora of cryptic images flashed on his otherwise bright yellow form, all of which went by too quickly to make anything of. “LOTS OF THINGS… Hey, look what I can do!” he quipped, his body returning to its normal color as he held his hand out towards a deer that was grazing at the edge of the forest nearby. With a mere flick of his wrist, the doe’s teeth were all seamlessly ripped out of its mouth as they flew towards the demon’s open hand without delay. “Deer teeth!” he handed the collection of teeth to Gideon with a twisted laugh. “For you, kid!”

“Augh!” Gideon cried in disgust, dropping the teeth immediately. “You’re insane!”

“Sure I am, what’s your point?” Bill shrugged, returning the deer’s teeth to its mouth with a simple wave of his hand. “I never did understand why you fleshbags get so worked up about that little tidbit. Then again, you’d hardly be the first.”

As unnerved as Gideon was, his fear was turning more into frustration over Bill’s impudent, rather callous attitude, which seemed to far exceed even his own. Still, as flustered as he was, the child psychic regained his composure and take up a firm stance as he voiced his demands. “Listen to me, demon! I have a job for you,” he said, glaring boldly at Bill all the while. “I need you to enter the mind of Stanford Pines and steal the code to his safe!”

Upon hearing exactly what Gideon’s intentions for summoning this bizarre demon were, Mabel, Soos, and Steven all gasped in shocked unison. After all, if the child psychic had gone to such great lengths, then clearly, he was done playing around. This time, he meant business.

Once again, Bill simply laughed mockingly, clearly not taking Gideon too seriously. “Yeah, sure, I-” he abruptly cut himself off however, his eye reverting to a cold glare as he turned away from the child psychic briefly. “Wait… Stan Pines…” he mused, his form flashing with an image of the conman himself, followed by an unknown, glowing red symbol. His eye went wide with realization before he quickly turned back to Gideon, maintaining his usual casual manner. “You know what, kid? You’ve convinced me. I’m sold! I’ll help you with this, and in return you can help me with something I’ve been working on! Nothing too big, just a… a pet project, ya know? We’ll work out the details later.”

“Deal!” Gideon exclaimed without hesitating, knowing that whatever Bill wanted from him in return from this would be more than worth it to get his hands on the Mystery Shack.

As the child psychic held out his hand to solidify the deal, the demon’s own hand erupted in a bright blue flame, though it oddly didn’t burn Gideon as the two shook on their plans, much to the amazement and slight horror of the trio still watching the exchange from afar.

“Well, time to invade Stan’s mind! This should be fun!” Bill exclaimed with undaunted glee. “Remember: Realityisanillusiontheuniverseisahologramtheclusteriscomingbuygold bye!”

After imparting this fast-spoken, bewildering message, Bill suddenly disappeared in blinding blue flash, similar to the one he had first appeared in. As the light cleared and color returned to the black and white world, Gideon let out a sharp gasp as he opened his eyes, clearing them as if he had just awakened from a dream. But what had just happened was far from just a mere dream, as Mabel, Steven, and Soos could all attest to as they also opened their eyes, completely shocked at what they had just witnessed.

“It worked!” Gideon let out a maniacal laugh as he realized all of his sinister plans were coming together. However, the trio in the bushes all knew they had a serious problem on their hands with this development, which was why they were quick to retreat so they could discuss it out of the child psychic’s earshot.

“Guys, this is really bad,” Mabel said with apt concern. “We can’t let that triangle guy get inside Stan’s mind. Who knows what’ll happen if he does?”

“Dudes, that guy was crazy bonkers creepy!” Soos exclaimed fretfully. “Did you see what he did with those deer teeth? I totally thought I was gonna puke!”

“And the way he just… laughed about it, like it was actually funny,” Steven shuddered with an anxious frown. “It was scary. Even if his little top hat and bow tie were kinda cute. But what can we do to stop him?”

“Oh! Oh! I know!” Mabel exclaimed, her expression alight with a newfound idea. “Who better to call to get rid of crazy evil things like that then the three coolest Gems in Gravity Falls? Well, the only three Gems in Gravity Falls, but still! I’m sure they’d be able to get rid of that triangle guy, no problem!”

“Yeah!” Steven exclaimed with zeal before his smile quickly faded. “Oh, but wait… they’re gone for the day and I don’t know when they’ll be back. And I don’t think we really have a lot of time to wait for them…”

“Dang it!” Mabel exclaimed with a frustrated snap of her fingers. “Well then I guess we’re gonna have to do this ourselves. To the Mystery Shack!”

“To the Mystery Shack!” Soos and Steven repeated boldly after her, before the handyman quickly interjected.

“Uh, actually, can we maybe stop off for snacks first? You can’t fight a crazy triangle demon on an empty stomach, dudes.”

Mabel and Steven looked to each other for a moment upon hearing this request, but in the end, this delay easily won them both over. After all, they certainly had enough time to grab a quick snack before stopping Gideon’s twisted ambitions, right? “To the Big Donut!” the young Gem proclaimed just as vigorously as before.

“To the Big Donut!”

Seeing as how he had been the only one around for the past hour, Dipper had found himself stuck with even more chores to add onto the already lengthy list Stan had rattled off to him. His current task of sweeping up the living room put him rather close proximity to the conman, who was fast asleep on his recliner in front of the TV. Dipper paused, giving Stan a suspicious glance as he mumbled a rather incoherent apology in his sleep.

“What is going on in that guy’s head?” Dipper wondered to himself incredulously as he prepared to leave the room. However, before he could, Mabel, Steven, and Soos burst in in a rather noticeable panic, even despite the snacks they were all toting.

“Dipper! We gotta help Stan!” Mabel cried loudly, though somehow she still didn’t end up waking the snoozing conman.

“Wait, what?” Dipper asked, aptly confused at this sudden plea.

“This evil triangle guy said he’s gonna break into Stan’s mind and steal the combination to his safe!” Soos exclaimed, his mouth full of Burrito Bites. “Also we stopped for snacks on the way here.”

“We watched Gideon summon him or something out in the woods,” Steven explained much more earnestly. “They made like, some kind of deal, I think? It was pretty confusing…”

“Wait,” Dipper interrupted, trying to make sense of everything they were saying. “Triangle guy? Deal? I felt like I’ve seen something like this before in the journal…” he mused, pulling said book out of his vest and tentatively flipping through it before finding the right page. It was by far one of the most ominous ones in the entire journal, transcribed in panicked scribbles as opposed to the author’s usual clean script and marred with what seemed to be several blood splatters. And of course, its content was even more disturbing, as they all quickly gleaned from Dipper reading it aloud. “Beware Bill! The most powerful and dangerous creature I’ve ever encountered. This nightmare in disguise will seduce you with never ending flattery until he gets what he wants. Whatever you do, never let him into your mind. There is no telling what damage Bill might no. Do not summon at all costs.”

This reading was abruptly interrupted as Stan started tossing and turning about in his sleep, a pained expression washing over his face. “Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cried worriedly as the others gasped with equal concern. For before anyone could do anything, the ominous triangular shadow of Bill Cipher himself draped itself upon the wall behind Stan, before sinking down slowly, no doubt into the conman’s mind. In the wake of this, Stan’s movements became even more jerky and erratic as his eyes shot open, though it was clear he was anything but really awake. Rather, his eyes were glowing bright blue as he let out a series of struggling cries.

“Oh no! We’re too late!” Steven exclaimed in dismay. “What do we do?”

Mabel was quick to get the answer to this question as she grabbed the journal from Dipper and read an excerpt from the next page aloud: “It is possible to follow the demon into a person’s mind and prevent his chaos. One must simply recite this incantation.”

“Ugh, this is just great,” Dipper remarked bitterly. “I spend all day cleaning sinks and fighting bats for Stan and now I have to save him from some crazy brain demon?”

“But we gotta help Mr. Pines, Dipper!” Steven urged pleadingly. “If we don’t do something, then who knows what might happen?”

“Gideon might steal the shack!” Mabel exclaimed fretfully. “Or worse!”

The conversation was interrupted once more as Stan let out another scream amidst his restless thrashing, his eyes still blank and glowing. And if that wasn’t enough to prompt the kids into action, then nothing was.

“Fine,” Dipper sighed relentingly, not too fond of putting himself in what would be certain danger for Stan like this. Still, he knew that if he refused, Mabel and Steven would never let him hear the end of it. “Get ready, guys. We’re about to journey into the most horrifying, disturbing place any of us have ever been: our uncle’s mind.”

Despite the determination the kids had for this daring mission, Soos was quick to break through it with an inquisitive, though somewhat unrelated question. “You think I can take these Burrito Bites into Stan’s brain?” he asked, holding the back of snacks up. “Thumbs up? Thumbs down?” The handyman paused for a moment, gaging the kids’ reactions to this proposal, or rather, lack thereof before letting out a small laugh. “You know what, I’m just gonna bring ‘em.”

It took a while to get everything in order, but with the journal to guide them, the kids eventually managed to construct the setup they would need to perform the ritual that would hopefully grant them access into Stan’s mind. The group had constructed a circle of candles surrounding the conman in the living room, one that was admittedly quite similar to the one Gideon had used to summon Bill in the first place. With the lights turned off and the candles burning dimly, the four of them stood around the still-slumbering conman, preparing themselves for the daunting task ahead.

“Ok, guys,” Dipper said with resolve, still holding the journal open to the incantation. “In order to save Stan, we’re gonna have to follow that dream demon into his mind.”

“I wonder what it’ll be like in there…” Steven mused curiously. “Oh! Wouldn’t it be awesome and adorable if there was a tiny version of Mr. Pines in there who will take us on a tour? It’d be just like it is here at the shack!”

“Oh my gosh, that would be the cutest thing ever,” Mabel gushed with a delighted smile. “Especially if tiny Stan sang and danced, just like I’ve always wanted the real Stan to do but he never does because he says its ‘cheesy’!”

“Guys, come on,” Dipper said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Stop messing around. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get out and be done with this whole thing. ”

“I wonder what Stan is thinking right now,” Soos cut in thoughtfully. With a small grin, the handyman pulled the conman’s jaw up and down and comically threw his voice to put words in his boss’ mouth. “‘I love Soos like a son!’”

“Soos! This is serious!” Dipper scolded impatiently.

“‘Sorry!’” Soos exclaimed, still briefly pretending to speak through Stan before exchanging a high five with Mabel out of amusement.

“So if we’re finally done wasting time,” Dipper began pointedly, shooting the others a disapproving glance. “Let’s do this.” As soon as everyone had placed a hand on the conman’s forehead as a point of contact, Dipper began to recite the intended incantation straight from the journal itself. “Videntis Omnium. Magister Mentium. Magnesium Ad Hominem. Magnum Opus. Habeus Corous.” As the spell went on, all of their eyes, and even the gemstone on Steven’s stomach, started to glow the same bright blue as Stan’s, though none of them could really pay too much mind to that as the incantation neared its completion. “Inceptus Nolanus Overratus. Magister Mentium. Magister Mentium! Magister Mantium!”

A very bright, very quick flash illuminated the room, all of the candles abruptly going out in the process. And then, as the light faded as quickly as it had appeared, Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Steven were all but gone.

And instead, they opened their eyes to find themselves in what seemed like another world entirely.

All four of the kids let out muted gasps of awe as they got their first glimpse at the grayscale landscape all around them. Not a speck of tangible color existed and the very atmosphere itself was still and lifeless, though it did flicker briefly every now and then. The most presently noticeable feature was the large duplicate of the Mystery Shack before them, which seemed to float amidst nothingness. Its façade was even more dilapidated and worn down than the real-life version of the building, with pieces crumbling apart and hovering scattered around it and its very structure hewn and stitched together without any form or order. Curious, the gang got up and slowly began to approach it, taking care in their initial steps lest this ethereal world fall apart around them at any slight provocation.

“Whoa… is this really Stan’s mind?” Mabel asked, glancing around with wide eyes.

“I figured there would be more hot old ladies,” Soos remarked.

“And I guess there’s no tiny Mr. Pines in here after all…” Steven said with a disappointed frown that turned to one of confusion as he happened to look to his left and see one of the several battered facets surrounding the mind shack. It was a simple swing set, obviously rusted and bent as vines clung to it and one of its two seats was hanging broken from it, while the other lone seat slowly swayed to a nonexistent breeze. For reasons the young Gem couldn’t quite place, a wave of sudden regret and sympathy washed over him as he looked at the old abandoned swing set, though he was quickly broken out of it as the others moved on without him. Before anyone could really notice he wasn’t keeping up, Steven hurried to catch up with the rest of them as they came to stand before the mind shack.

“Remember everyone,” Mabel said, her tone plucky and serious. “We’ve gotta look out for the triangle guy.”

“Yeah, look out for the triangle guy!” Bill himself quipped as he made his arrival, rising up from the porch of the mind shack.

“It’s him!” Soos exclaimed as the others gasped in surprise. “It’s the guy!”

“You leave our uncle’s brain alone, you isosceles monster!” Mabel warned, her boldness getting the better of her as she charged towards the dream demon in the hopes of catching him. Of course, Bill was more than prepared for such an attack, which was why he allowed Mabel to leap right into him, hardly even caring as she disappeared into his triangular form. The dream demon pulled a stopwatch out of nowhere, and after using it to wait a few seconds, he sent the girl tumbling out of him in the same way she had came. “Gotcha!” Mabel exclaimed triumphantly, only to find that hadn’t caught anything. “Wait, what?”

“Ah, Stan’s family. We meet at last,” Bill remarked casually. “Question Mark, Shooting Star, Pine Tree, I had a hunch I might bump into you!” With an amused look, the dream demon pointed at the group, a laser blasting from his finger in a sudden burst. The blast ended up striking Dipper straight in the chest, startling him a great deal as he let out a horrified scream. However, as the initial panic wore off, he realized that the attack hadn’t really hurt him, though what was quite alarming was the large, gaping round hole that had been cleanly shot through his chest.

“Boop!” Mabel exclaimed with a joking smirk as she stuck her hand through the new hole in her brother’s body just for fun.

“Mabel!” Dipper scolded, pushing her hand away.

“And look who else is joined this party!” Bill exclaimed, disappearing and immediately rematerializing right behind Steven. “Hey there, Rosebud! How are you and those Crystal Chumps doing?”

“You mean… the Gems?” Steven asked uneasily, suddenly perplexed by how the dream demon seemed to know about them. Then again, he had said so himself: he knew lots of things.

“Well, duh!” Bill rolled his eye. “I’d ask how ol’ Quartzy is, but that would be pretty redundant, if you catch my drift.”

“Wait, Quarzty? As in… Rose Quartz?” the young Gem asked, confused by all the nicknames. The dream demon simply “nodded” as he continued to spin his black cane casually. “You… you knew my mom?”

“Sure did! Me and your dear old mom go waaaaay back. She sure was something else, let me tell you!” Bill exclaimed with a small laugh. “Speaking of quartzes, mind if I take a quick peek at that rock on your gut, kid?”

“Oh, my gem?” Steven frowned, tentatively lifting up his shirt to reveal it.

“That’s the one!” the dream demon quipped cheerfully, snapping his fingers. The second he did so, however, the gemstone on Steven’s stomach suddenly disappeared completely, only to reappear over Bill’s open palm a second later.

“Hey! My gem!” the young Gem cried fretfully, looking down to the now empty spot on his stomach, where only an indentation where his gem had once been remained. Likewise, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos all gasped with apt concern, all of them quickly growing tired of the crafty demon’s demented games.

“Relax, Rosebud,” Bill reassured, making sure to keep the pink stone out of anyone’s reach. “I’m just borrowing it for a while. After all, Gems like this are pretty hard to come by anymore. And besides, you won’t even remember its gone after a while!” With a mere flick of his wrist, the gemstone disappeared into thin air, and much to Steven’s dismay, did not make a reappearance in its rightful place on his stomach. “But anyway, enough talking about who knows who and crying over rocks,” the dream demon shrugged, gliding back over the mind. “Instead, let’s chat about how you kids are gonna leave and let me go about my business, hm?”

“Not a chance!” Dipper protested firmly. “What do you want with our uncle’s mind anyway?”

“Oh, just the code to the old man’s safe!” Bill remarked, just as informal as ever. “Inside the shack is a maze of a thousand doors representing your uncle’s memories. Behind one of them is a memory of him inputting the code. I just need to find it and Gideon will pay me handsomely!”

“Not if we stop you!” Mabel challenged.

“Ha! Fat chance!” the dream demon scoffed. “I’m the master of the mind. I even know what you’re thinking about right now!”

“That’s impossible!” Mabel proclaimed confidently. “No one can guess what I’m thinking!”

She was quickly proven wrong, however as Bill snapped his fingers once more, resulting in a very colorful blast of light. When it cleared, two tall young men, both clad in the gaudy neon fashions of the 90s, had appeared among the group, much to Mabel’s absolute delight.

“Ahhhhh!” she squealed with sheer joy as she looked up at the two boys excitedly. “Xyler and Craz from Dream Boy High?! You two are even dreamier in person, if that’s even possible!”

“Whoa, where are we, bro?” Xyler asked, bewildered as he looked around.

“We must be in heaven, cause I just saw an angel!” Craz declared pointing at Mabel with a smile.

Of course, Mabel let out another happy scream as she hugged Craz’s leg tightly. “I’m never letting go of your leg!”

“You’re out of your league, kids,” Bill cut in, satisfied that he had demonstrated just a bit of his power. “Turn around before you see something you might regret. Later, suckers!” With another mocking laugh, the dream demon abruptly crashed through the wall of the mind shack, leaving a triangle hole behind as he hurried inside to begin his treacherous work.

“We’re going in!” Dipper exclaimed, knowing that Bill already had a head start on them. “Uh, Mabel? Can we leave those guys out here?” he nodded to the dream boys. “Looking at them… hurts my eyes.”

“No way!” Mabel protested adamantly, still holding onto Craz’s leg. “They can help us!”

“I think they’re pretty cool,” Steven interjected, smiling at the boys.

“Thanks, bro!” Xyler exclaimed, exchanging a high five with the young Gem.

“Whoa, neat! I’m a bro!” Steven grinned brightly. “Still… I kinda wish I still had my gem… I dunno, I’d just feel a lot… better with it…” he frowned, glancing down to the vacant spot on his stomach.

“Don’t worry, Steven. We can get it back when we stop Bill!” Mabel reassured daringly.

“Alright!” Xyler and Craz cheered in supporting unison. “Arm throne!” Both boys bent down and linked their arms together, creating something of a seat that Mabel was more than happy to leap into, chuckling brightly as she allowed the boys to carry her inside the mind shack.

“Dude! Arm throne!” Soos copied them, holding his own arms out to Dipper. Of course, he turned this offer down seeing as he was still somewhat sullen and self conscious about the gaping hole in his chest, but Steven on the other hand was more than willing to comply.

“Yay! Arm throne!” he exclaimed, hopping into the handyman’s arms. They both laughed as they headed into the mind shack after Mabel and the boys, with Dipper following much more petulantly behind them.

Much like the outside, the interior of the mind shack itself was drained of all colors, as well as disjointed and scrambled in almost every way possible. Floating staircases were everywhere, leading to doors in seemingly every single direction imaginable. Several of the doors were clearly marked, from one that was tightly bolted shut labeled “fears” and another one afar in the distance that had a soft white glow to it entitled “hopes” and still several others. As discombobulating and strange as it all was, no one could deny that this expansive labyrinth was perhaps more than any of them had bargained for.

Yet even so, if there was anyone heedless of the daunting challenged ahead, it was the (admittedly dense) dream boys. “Radical!” Craz exclaimed with a wide grin.

“I also think its radical!” Xyler agreed with just as much zeal.

“This place is so huge!” Steven exclaimed, glancing around in awe. “Where do we even start looking?”

“Our best bet would probably-” Dipper began, though he was abruptly cut off as a bat with, oddly enough, Stan’s face flew past, barking “no refunds” repeatedly. Already quite irritated with this mission and the conman as a whole, Dipper let out a frustrated sigh before he continued. “Like I was saying… our best bet would probably be that door down there that says ‘memories’.” He nodded to the door at the bottom of the nearest set of stairs.

“Oh, good idea, dude!” Soos agreed with a smile. “Though in retrospect, I guess it was sorta obvious.”

Intrepid in their mission, the group headed through the door into a seemingly endless hall of the conman’s memories, all of which were playing out simultaneously in the open doorways lining it. Most of the memories immediately on display were quite recent, ranging from Stan taking on the pterodactyl to rescue Waddles, to Stan giving Soos a task at the shack, to Stan arguing with Pearl over the rocket ship project and still countless more. And somewhere among this plethora of memories, was no doubt the combination for the safe that both all of them and Bill were searching for.

“Whoa, look! All of Stan’s memories!” Soos remarked, amazed.

“Cool! Each one of them is kinda like a little mini-movie!” Steven chuckled, glancing at a door containing the memory of Stan and Amethyst scaring off Summerween trick or treaters. “Or should I say, mini-memory-movies!”

“Great, I’m sure there’s plenty of memories of Stan bossing me around,” Dipper said dryly, crossing his arms. “Can’t wait to see more of that.”

“Come on, Dipper! We gotta find that code before Bill does!” Mabel urged resolutely.

“Mabel is talking!” Craz exclaimed, duly impressed.

“So rad!” Xyler gushed just as enthusiastically.

“Let’s get searching!” Soos declared, prompting the group into action. The hall was indeed as Bill had described it: a maze. But the gang stuck together as they ran through it, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like it could be the memory of the code they were looking for. Since not all of the doors were hanging wide open, they realized they would have to open some of them for themselves, which was a trend Dipper started as he opened up a random door.

The memory inside the door showed a much younger version of Stan, clad in an orange jumpsuit as he sat in a prison cell alongside two very rugged cellmates. “Jorge, Rico,” Stan began with a wide smile, wrapping an arm around each of them. “You’re the best Colombian prison friends a fella could make.”

“Espero que muera,” Rico said to Jorge with clear disdain for the oblivious conman.

“Si,” Jorge agreed simply.

“Nope!” Dipper said, concluding the memory to be useless in their search as he shut the door.

Meanwhile, Soos opened up another nearby door, to find another memory of a young Stan, who was attempting to sell vacuums as a door to door salesman. “Sir, would you like to buy a Stan-Vac vacuum?” he began his pitch with a flashy grin. “Stan-Vac: It sucks more than anything.” Of course, upon hearing this faulty slogan, the customer was quick to slam the door right in the conman’s face. “Gotta work on that…”

“Nope,” Soos shook his head, closing the door.

“Whoa, this one has Amethyst in it!” Steven pointed to the door he had opened. The scene inside of it depicted Stan and Amethyst one of their infamous Revenge Trips, embroiled in what appeared to be a high-speed car chase with the police.

“I thought you said nobody saw you steal those tires!” the conman exclaimed, alarmed as the cops’ sirens blared behind them.

“Hey, how was I supposed to know that place had a security camera!?” the purple retorted casually, clearly unconcerned. “Just do what you always do when the heat shows up. Floor it!”

“I can do better than that,” Stan smirked, shifting his car into gear, pushing it much faster than before. The pair both let out a precocious laugh as they easily outgunned the cops, all while the conman peeked his head out the window and taunted them triumphantly. “Try and catch us now, suckers!”

“Aw, those two always have so much fun together,” Steven said with a warm smile as he closed the door.

“Oh look! It’s Stan on a date!” Mabel cooed curiously, pulling a smaller door open. And indeed, the conman sat across from Lazy Susan on a dinner date, one that clearly wasn’t going well, based on the stilted, awkward conversation they were having.

“So, uh… your eye is weird,” Stan began, his tone uncertain. “Let’s… let’s talk about that.” Lazy Susan merely let out a loud laugh at this, one that the conman joined in much more anxiously as his thoughts narrated over the memory. “Ugh, this is going terrible. I can’t think of anything to say and she… she looks weird up close. Think of a way out!” Of course, Stan’s “way out” was appropriately unorthodox and sudden as he abruptly stood from the table and cried: “Non-specific excuse!” before shoving everything off of the table and running for his car outside.

“Yeesh,” Mabel closed the door, cringing at the awkward display.

As the group forged on ahead to continue their hunt, they happened to pass by a door leading to another hallway simply labeled “Dipper Memories”, which of course, was quick to catch Dipper’s attention. “Look, guys! Memories about me!” he exclaimed, grabbing the doorknob tentatively.

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea, dude,” Soos noted with a frown, nodding to the “keep out” sign on the door.

“Yeah, I doubt we’ll find the combination to the safe in there,” Steven said. “Unless Mr. Pines told it to you, Dipper. But then… I guess we wouldn’t really need to be here if he did, so…”

“Listen, I just wanna know what the old guy really thinks of me,” Dipper said, pulling the door open a little more.

“We already know how Stan feels about us!” Mabel quipped confidently as she began to walk off. “He loves us! We’re great.”

“Yeah, let’s just keep moving,” Soos agreed as him and Steven headed onward with Mabel and her dream boys.

“More moving?” Xyler asked excitedly.

“Yes! I love motion!” Craz quipped brightly.

Dipper started to follow the rest of the group as well for a moment, though as soon as he was sure no one was noticing, he quickly turned and rushed back to the door. True, it didn’t really have much to do with their overall objective, but still. He needed to know the truth for himself.

“Ok, just a quick peek…” he muttered, slowly opening the door and heading inside. Expectedly, this hallway was much more narrow than the main one, and seemingly a bit darker too, as Dipper noted while exploring it. As he walked down it, he could clearly hear Stan bark orders at him from all of the countless open doors, all of which were instances that Dipper also remembered, none of which very fondly. Deciding that any of them would probably do to prove his point, he chose a random door to open, revealing a memory that, to his own recollection, had only happened about a week or so ago.

“No buts!” Stan exclaimed harshly, his tone stern as he pointed to the pile of wood in the lawn. “Now go and chop that firewood already!” As a way of asserting his authority, the conman knocked his nephew on the head with the newspaper he was holding, much to his chagrin. With an aggravated sigh, Dipper turned and headed off to start chopping the wood while Stan took a supervising role as he sat upon the couch on the porch alongside Soos and Amethyst.

“Dude, Stan, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Soos began with a concerned frown. “Why are you so hard on Dipper all the time?”

“Yeah, seriously,” Amethyst agreed casually, munching on an empty soda can. “I mean, yeah the kid’s a nerd, but that’s really no reason to pick on him that much. Even if it is kinda funny.”

Outside of the memory, Dipper simply rolled his eyes upon hearing this, more than used to Amethyst’s callous remarks by now. But even so, he listened intently as Stan began to explain. “Listen, you two. I’m gonna let you in on something.”

“What, about how you wet the bed until you were like, thirteen?” Amethyst asked with a joking smirk. “Because you already let that one slide to me, Stan.”

“N-no! And I never said anything about that!” Stan exclaimed, clearly flustered. “Just… ugh, look. You really wanna know what I think?”

From there, the conman’s voice dropped into a low whisper as he talked to Soos and Amethyst, prompting Dipper to lean in a bit closer to the door so he could make out what Stan was saying. And when he was able to hear what Stan was saying, Dipper just as soon wished he hadn’t. “The kid’s a loser. He’s weak! He’s an utter embarrassment! I just wanna get rid of him.”

Dipper didn’t really need to hear anything else after all this, which was why he slowly shut the door before Stan could say any more hurtful things about him. He let out a dejected sigh as he turned away from it, his head hung as he stared down to the ground in disappointment. Dipper hadn’t really been sure of what he expected to find here, but a small part of him had hoped that it wouldn’t have been something like this. Indeed, his suspicions about Stan’s apparent disdain for him had been all but proven by the conman himself. Still, that hardly prevented the revelation from hurting as much as it did. If anything, hearing it come from Stan only made it hurt even worse. Before, Dipper had merely speculated that the conman simply found him as an easy target for his teasing and orders out of apathy alone and little else. But now he knew that there was much more to it than that. There was ire, contempt, and scorn, all things that, in retrospect, Stan had never hesitated to show towards him before. Which was why Dipper realized that instead of futilely trying to gain the conman’s fickle favor, he might as well show those very things towards the conman in full force.

After all, it was only fair.

None of the others had really noticed Dipper’s absence yet as they continued searching through the maze of doors for the code, though with relatively little luck so far.

“Hello? Code to Stan’s safe?” Mabel called. “Where are you?”

“Opening and closing doors is fun!” Xyler proclaimed, randomly opening and shutting the same door over and over again.

“I can do it also!” Craz quipped with a huge smile, doing the exact same thing.

“Oh, maybe it’s in this one…” Steven mused, opening up a nearby door curiously. While he didn’t find the code, what he did find though peaked his interest quite a bit. “Whoa, look you guys! It’s my dad when he used to work for Mr. Pines!”

The others all gathered around the door inquisitively as they observed a scene in the gift shop play out. Greg sat behind the counter, organizing merchandise as Stan casually leaned against it, rattling off a lengthy list of complaints about only one thing: the Gems.

“And you know what else irks me about those four?” the conman asked, crossing his arms. “Every time they have some sort of disaster or monster up at that temple of theirs’, it always manages to wind up down here somehow. I’m still trying to regrow the grass that fire monster they fought last week burnt up.”

“Aw, come on, Mr. Pines,” Greg said with a small smile. “The Gems really aren’t that bad once you get to know them.”

“Sure, Greg,” Stan deadpanned. “Of course, you’re only saying that because you’re head over heels for one of them.”

“Heh, well I am a little guilty of that…” the former rock star grinned bashfully. “But who knows? I’m sure if you just gave the Gems a chance then maybe you guys could actually get along!”

“Ha! Yeah right! The day I make nice with any of those broads is the day pigs fly.”

“Well, given how weird this town can sometimes be, I wouldn’t say that’s totally impossible…” Greg chuckled, finally eliciting an amused smirk from Stan as well.

“Well what do you know?” Steven said, closing the door and exchanging a smile with Mabel. “Looks like my dad was right after all.”

“Yeah! About both things, kinda,” Mabel shrugged with a laugh.

As they moved on, Soos opened up another door, this one containing a memory of Stan pressing several buttons on the gift shop’s vending machine late at night. Neither of the kids were there with the handyman to see the machine swing aside and reveal that there was a secret staircase hidden behind it.

“If only people knew the truth…” Stan said mysteriously, glancing out from behind the vending machine as he prepared to go down. “That hidden behind this vending machine, I secretly have a-”

“Boring!” Soos exclaimed, carelessly slamming the door shut before the conman could finish.

“Alright, guys,” Mabel said, standing before a small door labeled ‘top secret’. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

She readily swung it open, uncovering a memory not of the safe combination, but rather of Stan in the bathroom, bereft of a shirt as he used his stomach as something of a puppet for his own amusement. “Hey, Mr. Tummy!” he greeted, grinning down at his gut. “‘Hey Mr. Stan,” the conman threw his voice as he made his stomach essentially “talk”. “Are you hungry? ‘Yes!’ Then eat your crackers!”

The group observing this memory all cringed in relative disgust over it, especially as Stan started “feeding” his stomach crackers. “Sweet Sally!” Mabel exclaimed, repulsed as she quickly shut the door.

“Ugh, we’ve been searching forever!” Steven exclaimed, exasperated. “And there are still a ton of doors we haven’t even checked yet! What if Bill finds the memory before we do?”

“Guys, we got this,” Mabel reassured. “If we wanna find Stan’s memory, then we gotta think like Stan. He’s always hiding stuff, right?”

“Yeah!” Soos agreed. “Like how he’s always hiding his arrest warrants under that rug in the gift shop?”

“Soos, that’s it!” Mabel exclaimed brightly. “Look!” She pointed to a rug lying on the ground just a few feet away, one that was nearly identical to the one Stan kept in the gift shop. And sure enough, upon pulling the rug away, the group found one more door hiding underneath it. The gang all exchanged wide smiles of anticipation, all of them hoping that this was at last the elusive memory they had been seeking. And as Mabel opened the door, they were instantly overjoyed to find that it indeed was.

Inside the memory, Stan kissed the precious deed to the Mystery Shack before putting it safely inside the safe. “There ya go,” he said, shutting the door. “And now to input the code. 13, 44, and finally-”

Soos closed the door before Stan could finish but even so, the entire group was immensely relieved and excited to have finally come across it. “Dude! We found it!” the handyman exclaimed cheerfully.

“Yeah!” Steven and Mabel cheered, exchanging a high five.

“But what do we do now?” Xyler and Craz asked in tandem. “Jinx!”

“Um… hm…” Mabel mused, trying to come up with a suitable solution. “Oh! I know! Let’s destroy the memory before Bill can find it!”

“But… if we destroy the memory, then wouldn’t Mr. Pines not be able to remember the code at all?” Steven asked with a frown as Mabel grabbed the ax from a nearby statue of armor.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Mabel shrugged, struggling to tote the heavy ax over to the door. “But still, anything’s better than Gideon getting ahold of it and stealing the deed!”

“Wait!” Soos suddenly stopped Mabel before she could bring the ax down on the door. “Maybe I should do it! My big fat arms are great at destroying stuff!”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel grinned, seeing no harm in this plan.

However, instead of outright destroying the door using force, the handyman simply reached his hand out towards it silently, focusing on it intently. Mabel and Steven exchanged a confused glance at this, though their bewilderment soon turned to surprise as a blue glow started to surround the door as Soos managed to lift it from the floor without even touching it.

“Whoa… How are you doing that, Soos?” Steven asked in apt amazement as the door hovered beside the handyman.

However, before Soos could answer, oddly enough, another Soos happened to wander onto the scene at that exact moment. “Hey, guys!” the new handyman greeted a bit obliviously. “I just saw a memory of Stan roller skating and wearing short-shorts! Didn’t… didn’t look that bad!” An awkward pause permeated the group, during which Soos finally happened to notice the presence of his doppelganger. “Hey, something weird is goin’ on here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…”

The other Soos simply laughed as his cover was blown, though it was far from the handyman’s laugh. Instead, it was the telltale mocking, borderline insane laughter of Bill Cipher himself, which made more sense as the dream demon seamlessly shifted from his perfect disguise into his usual triangular form. “Boy, you kids sure are gullible!” he exclaimed, holding onto the door as the group all gaped at him in apt surprise. “I knew you’d lead me straight to the code! It’s funny how dumb you are!”

“Hey, no fair!” Steven exclaimed, dismayed. “You tricked us!”

“Wow, you sure are slow to the punch, kid,” Bill remarked teasingly. “Of course I tricked you! And it was even easier than I thought it would be! Then again, I never thought it would be that hard since you all are a bunch of half-wit mini-meatskins in the first place.”

“Oh yeah? Well, y-you’re… you’re a… a stink face!” Mabel retorted challengingly.

“Awesome comeback, Mabel!” Xyler congratulated with a thumbs up.

“Don’t treat me like a child, Xyler!” Mabel quickly scolded, frustrated.

“Well, as fun as holding my victory right over your heads is, I have a deal to make good on,” Bill said, lifting the door with the code inside up higher. “Later, suckers!” With another triumphant laugh, the dream demon raced off, flying away before any of the kids could hope to stop him.

“Oh no! The code!” Steven gasped in alarm.

“Come on!” Mabel urged, more than ready to chase after the demon for it. “We gotta save Stan!”

“What’s the point?” The other members of the group were all somewhat surprised to hear this question come from Dipper as he finally rejoined them, his expression quite sullen and his hands shoved into the pockets of his vest. “Why should I save him, huh? I work for Stan night and day, and all he does in return is say he wants to get rid of me.”

“Dipper, you know that’s not true,” Mabel was quick to argue.

“Why would Mr. Pines ever say anything like that?” Steven asked, concerned. “You’re his family, Dipper. He loves you!”

“No he doesn’t!” Dipper retorted harshly. “I saw it with my own eyes, you guys. He’s always picked on me and now I know why: Stan hates me!”

The others all gasped at this claim, none of them really able to believe it. “B-but… that can’t be right,” Steven tried to reason, even if Dipper wasn’t having it. “Maybe you just misheard him or something.”

“Or maybe it’s the truth and you guys are just in denial!” Dipper protested bitterly. “Look, if you need proof, then why don’t we all just go back to the door so you can hear what Stan-”

“Dipper, there’s no time!” Mabel interrupted, frustrated that he was even insisting upon something so ridiculous. “It doesn’t matter what you saw or what you heard. If we don’t stop Bill, we’ll lose the shack!”

“No!” Dipper refused, irresolute in his position. “You know what? Not this time. For once this is one of Stan’s problems I’m not gonna fix. If you guys wanna go put yourselves in the line of fire for him, that’s fine. But count me out.”

“W-what?!” Steven asked, quite surprised and dismayed at this turn of events. “But Dipper, we-”

“Fine!” Mabel retorted just as harshly, sending her brother a disapproving glare. “Go ahead and be a selfish old stick in the mud! Come on, you guys. We’ll save Stan ourselves.” Without sparing another word, she promptly headed off to finish this mission, regardless if Dipper came along or not.

“Let’s go, Xyler,” Craz said, eagerly following behind Mabel.

“All right, Craz!”

“Those are our names!”

“Totally righteous!”

“Dipper, you’re a cool dude but… this isn’t cool, dude,” Soos said with a disappointed frown as he also moved on. But even so, Dipper refused to change his stance on the matter, even as Steven lingered behind for a moment.

“Let me guess, Steven,” Dipper began, crossing his arms as he let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re gonna try and convince me that I should help you guys save Stan, right?”

“Uh… well, yeah, actually,” Steven admitted with a shrug. “But only because it’s the right thing to do!”

“Well, forget it,” Dipper shook his head, firm in his resolve. “It doesn’t matter if its right or not. Nothing you can say will make me change my mind about this. Besides, you can’t honestly tell me that Stan saying he wants nothing to do with me is ‘right’ either, can you?”

“Well, no… I can’t…” the young Gem frowned, not really sure of what to say. “And… I guess I can’t really convince you to help us either… But you should at least think twice about this, Dipper. I mean, this is kind of a big deal, in case you haven’t noticed…”

“Oh, believe me, Steven, I’ve thought about it plenty,” Dipper said, glaring away bitterly. “You might as well go join the others. I’ll see you on the outside.”

“But…” Steven started to protest before realizing that this was a losing battle. “Ok… but… you know where to find us if you change your mind.”

“Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen,” Dipper remarked sardonically as the two of them headed their separate ways.

Steven frowned in disappointment as he started off in the direction that Mabel and Soos had went, rather upset that he hadn’t been able to really change Dipper’s mind as he had hoped. However, his dejection soon turned to surprise as he heard a startlingly familiar voice ring out from one of the memories down a nearby hall.

“I can’t—I wont’t let you do this,” the feminine voice said, her tone hardened and firm. Steven’s jaw dropped as he heard it, knowing that he had heard this very same voice for the first time ever in the video tape he had watched just a few days ago. But still… what place would she have here in Stan’s memories?

“So what? You’re gonna try and stop me, pinky? Is that how this is gonna be?!” Stan asked in angry response. Steven’s curiosity raised even more upon hearing this, especially as he realized that whatever this encounter was, it was likely quite confrontational.

“Yes. I am,” the pink Gem’s voice was solid, the determination in it clear. The young Gem took in an anxious breath as he stood in the threshold of the hall, still unable to see the memory for himself, even if he could clearly hear it. “I’ll do whatever I have must to keep you from reopening it. No matter what the cost.”

“Steven!” Mabel’s call abruptly broke the young Gem out of his intrigue. “Are you coming?”

“Uh, be there in a second!” Steven exclaimed in response, briefly turning back towards the source of the memory. He had missed whatever Stan had said, but he could tell the tension was still very high as Rose spoke again.

“Don’t you understand?! This thing is far too dangerous!” she exclaimed, a hint of remorse and desperation in her tone. “It was a mistake to build it in the first place. We should have never-”

“Steven!?” Mabel called once more, starkly reminding the young Gem of the urgency of the situation. He couldn’t afford to waste time investigating unrelated leads like this. Bill already had the code to the safe, and if they didn’t hurry, then it would be in Gideon’s hands before they knew it.

“Coming!” Steven assured, forcing himself to disregard the memory he had overheard. But even still, as he turned and started to continue on after the others, he couldn’t help but still pick up on bits and pieces of the argument until it was finally out of his earshot. “Gone… machine… not fair… Gems… disaster… your fault…” and finally “portal…” were all the young Gem was really able to make out, leaving him with far more questions than any answers. Despite that, Steven knew that he couldn’t really focus on any of those questions right now, not at such a high-stakes moment as this.

Still, that didn’t stop him from wanting to ask them.

Bill sped through the long hall of memories at a remarkable speed as every door he flew past flung open almost instantly. With the memory of the code in tow, the dream demon was assured in his victory and twistedly excited for what he would get in return from Gideon upon the fulfillment of their deal. And that fulfillment was at hand as Bill’s form suddenly rang like a phone, prompting him to answer the call with a tap of his bowtie.

“Y’ello?” the dream demon greeted casually as Gideon appeared on the screen that formed below his tie.

“Bill! Did you find the memory with the combination yet?” the child psychic asked eagerly.

“Relax, short stack. I got it right here,” Bill assured, pulling the door out of nothing.

“Perfect!” Gideon exclaimed with a triumphant laugh. “Now, give it to me and we’ll finish our bargain.”

“Finally! Its—you got a pen there? It’s 13, 44…” Before the dream demon could list off the last number, the door was suddenly struck with a suction cup projectile, cleanly knocking it out of his hand. “Ah! No, wait!” he cried, scrambling after the memory as it went flying towards another open door. The memory inside of it was Stan presenting the bottomless pit from several weeks ago as he stood before it.

“…and none are more bottomless than the bottomless pit! Which as you can see here is bottomless,” the conman concluded, though he did pause and watch in confusion as the code door happened to fly into the memory before quickly falling into the endless abyss. “Whoo!” Stan exclaimed, looking into the pit. “Whatever that was, its gone forever!”

As the door slammed shut, Mabel let out a victorious laugh as she lowered her Nyarf gun, Soos and the dream boys cheering over her perfect aim. “Ha! Boom!” she remarked, sending the shocked dream demon a coy smirk. “Your move, Bill.”

“Mabel did it!” Xyler and Craz exclaimed, completely stoked.

“H-hey, guys!” Steven greeted breathlessly as he caught up to everyone. “What did I miss?”

“We did it, dude!” Soos grinned widely. “The shack is safe!”

“The deal’s off!” Gideon shouted at Bill, completely infuriated over this turn of events.

“W-wait!” Bill exclaimed in a sudden panic. “No! Wait!”

“I should’ve known this wasn’t gonna work! I’m switchin’ to plan b!” the child psychic growled hotly. At this, the screen instantly turned off and the dream demon’s body began to crumble to pieces like broken glass, much to his alarm. However, it didn’t remain broken for long as it quickly reformed, only this time, it was not its usual bright yellow but instead a deep, warning shade of red.

“YOU!” Bill growled, enraged as he glared at the kids, his eye turning black as his pupil went white. “You can’t even imagine what you just cost me! Do you have any idea what I’m like… WHEN I’M MAD?!” The group was quite taken aback as several cryptic symbols passed through the furious demon’s eye, especially as the ground beneath them started to violently shake. Before any of them could even think of retreating, they found themselves all being lifted up on what was a large, round, stone surface that, oddly enough, was the top of a bust of Stan’s head. The newly-erected “arena” steadily rose high into the air, the black and white scenery of the mind shack disappearing into dark, unnerving, star-speckled space. Yet as startled as the kids all were at this, their relative fear only increased as Bill stared scaling up in size, until he towered over all of them easily.

“So I guess he gets really mad when he gets mad,” Soos remarked as they all cowered together, none of them having any idea about to do to protect themselves from the oncoming onslaught.

“EAT NIGHTMARES!” Bill shouted, his voice low and powerful as lightning crashed all around him, much to the group’s ever growing horror.

Seeing as how he had no reason to linger inside of Stan’s mind any longer, Dipper had taken to looking for a way out, though given how impossibly expansive the mind shack was, he wasn’t really having much luck. “Ugh, how do I get out of this place?” he muttered to himself, becoming increasingly frustrated with each dead-end hall he came across. “Exit? Hello?” he called, trying several doors as he came across them, none of them revealing any sort of reprieve. However, as he opened up another random door, he was met with a familiar sight: the same memory from before of Stan forcing him to chop wood. “Aw, this again?” Dipper asked with an annoyed frown, especially as the conman said his piece again.

“He’s a loser. He’s weak. I just wanna get rid of him,” Stan said just as callously as before, reminding Dipper once again of how little the conman supposedly cared about him. And since he didn’t really want or need such a reminder, he began to close the door to the memory again, only to hear in integral piece of information he hadn’t the first time. “Heh, yeah. Those were all things people said about me when I was a boy.”

“Huh?” Dipper’s attention was immediately caught at this as he opened the door again, confused but interested to hear more.

“It was terrible,” Stan went on, still addressing Soos and Amethyst. “I was the biggest wimp on the playground!”

As if in response to this, another door suddenly opened behind Dipper, revealing Stan as a child, clearly being bullied by his peers as they roughly hit him in the face with a ball. Clearly injured and embarrassed, he ran off in tears, much to the amusement of his bullies.

“So one summer, my pop signs me up for boxing lessons,” Stan continued in the first memory as yet another door opened up. In this one, a still young version of Stan was taking said boxing lessons and clearly losing as his father stoically watched on. “It was even worse than the school yard!” the older conman exclaimed as his younger self tried and failed to land a left hook on his opponent. “Y’know, at the time I thought my pop was trying to torture me.”

Another door soon opened, showing Stan as a teenager waiting in line for the movies. “But wouldn’t you know it? The old man was doing me a favor all along!” In the line right in behind Stan, a shady man walked up to a young woman and started trying to snatch her purse.

“Gimme that bag!” the man exclaimed, attempting to pull it away from her.

“Help! My purse! Help!” the girl cried fearfully, prompting the teenage Stan into action with the lessons he had learned in boxing class years ago.

“Left hook!” he shouted fearlessly, spinning around and landing a brutal uppercut to the thief, knocking him out cold. The surrounding crowd all cheered over his easy triumph while the girl graciously embraced him and gave him a kiss on the cheek as a reward, much to his delight.

“Geez, Stan,” Amethyst remarked with a laugh in the first memory. “You sounded like you were a major loser back in the day. Like, even more than you are now, if that’s even possible.”

The conman shot the purple Gem a quick disapproving glare before shaking her usual teasing off. “Yeah, well that’s exactly why I’m so hard on Dipper,” Stan concluded. “I don’t want him being a loser like I was. I’m trying to toughen him up. So when the world fights, he fights back.”

“Do you think its working?” Soos asked curiously.

Stan simply grinned in response to this and pointed to Dipper, who finally managed to chop the block of wood he had been working on for quite some time now in half. “I-I did it!” he exclaimed with a small, triumphant grin. “Yes!”

“He’s really comin’ along!” Stan remarked in apt satisfaction. “When push comes to shove, I’m actually proud of him. Just don’t ever tell him I said that. His head is big enough as it is.”

“Pfft, you got that right,” Amethyst smirked as her and Soos laughed along with the conman.

Outside of the memory, Dipper couldn’t help but smile warmly upon hearing all of this, his perceptions about Stan and his relationship with him completely shattered in the best of ways. While he had thought the conman’s harsh treatment of him had been out of disdain and abhorrence, it instead came from a place of rare affection and care. It was certainly surprising to learn, but Dipper couldn’t have been any more grateful for the revelation, especially after hearing Stan admit to being proud of him after all. And yet, at the same time, it also made him feel quite guilty for his earlier impudent behavior. A part of him wished he could offer Stan an apology then and there, but since he was in fact inside the conman’s mind, simply placing a hand against the now treasured memory would have to suffice.

However, what Dipper hadn’t counted on were for the walls between the memories and the hall to be so thin. Before he could catch his footing, he stumbled right into the memory itself, and since the door was right beside where Stan, Soos, and Amethyst were sitting, they were all quick to immediately notice his arrival.

“Whoa, kid, what are you doin’ here?” Stan asked, looking between him and the other Dipper inside the memory, who was still in the middle of chopping firewood. “Nice hole in your chest by the way. Let’s fix that up.” By merely pointing his finger at the still-gaping hole in Dipper’s chest, somehow managed to seal it up instantly, much to the boy’s absolute amazement.

“W-what the-?” he asked, checking himself over to see that hole was indeed completely closed, as if Bill had never shot it through him at all. “How did you do that?”

“Word to the wise, kid,” Stan grinned. “We’re in the mind! You can do whatever you can imagine in here!” As a demonstration, the conman held out his hand as a can of Pitt Cola instantaneously materialized in it, one that he cracked open and took a sip out of.

“Huh. Well how about that?” Dipper smiled, knowing just how helpful such advice could be. And it seemed as though the time to use it was very much at hand, especially as several loud booms crashed from the hallway right outside the memory, followed by screams from Soos, Mabel, and Steven. “Oh my gosh, what am I doing!?” Dipper exclaimed, alarmed. “I gotta stop Bill!”

Knowing there was no time to loose, he hurried out of the memory, not bothering to bid Stan farewell seeing as how they would see each other again soon enough. After all, the others would need his help against the dream demon, and armed with his newfound knowledge of the dreamscape, he would certainly have an edge that Bill hopefully wouldn’t be expecting.

“Huh,” Stan noted with an openly proud grin as he watched his nephew run off towards the fray, undaunted by whatever challenges he was about to face. “Fighting back.”

“One nightmare, coming up!” Bill shouted, still hovering high, huge and intimidating over the kids. None of them had the faintest idea of what to do to escape from him or fight back, which was why all they could really do was hope that they could figure out some way out of this incredibly dangerous situation, as impossible as one seemed.

“Nightmare?” Soos frowned. “Hope its not that British dog man I’m always dreaming about…” No sooner had the handyman said this than the very same large British dog man he feared appeared right next to him, much to his absolute horror.

“‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello! Who’s crike for a stick in the pudding?” the dog man asked in a very thick cockney accent, poking and prodding at Soos with his cane.

“Ah!” the handyman screamed, trying to shield himself from his nightmare. “It’s everything I’ve ever feared!”

“You!” Bill pointed at Mabel next, firing a round of his nightmare-creating power at her. The effect was immediate as her skin turned an unflattering shade of green and her head became large and malformed.

“My cuteness!” she cried, her voice also deepening and slowing down to match her new rather grotesque appearance. “What did you do to my cuteness?!”

“Mabel!” Steven gasped with apt concern, though he had no time to help either her or Soos as the dream demon moved onto him next.

“Your turn, Rosebud, and boy, do I have a doozy of a nightmare for you!” Bill exclaimed with a hint of sadistic glee in his otherwise angry tone as he snapped his fingers. The young Gem gasped once more as the Gems appeared standing behind him.

“You guys!” Steven grinned in relief as he turned to his guardians. “I’m so glad you’re here! We could really use your… help?” His excited smile faded into confusion as he noticed the hardened, disapproving glances all three of the Gems were giving him. “Guys? What’s-”

“We’re very disappointed in you, Steven,” Garnet interrupted, her already stoic tone even icier than usual.

“W-what?”

“You lost your gem!” Pearl exclaimed with an appalled scoff. “Do you honestly think you can be one of us, a Crystal Gem, without it?”

“W-wha—but wait! I didn’t lose it!” Steven protested, lifting up his shirt to show them. “It was stolen! I-”

“You really think that’s an excuse?” Amethyst asked, crossing her arms. “Face it, Steven. Even if you still had your gem, you still wouldn’t be good enough to be one of us.”

The young Gem’s breath caught at this, tears already welling up in his eyes upon hearing such harsh words from his beloved guardians. “B-but… but I-”

“You’ll never be anywhere near as strong or as brave as your mother was,” Pearl remarked, her tone full of disdain as she glared down at Steven. “She’d be so ashamed of you.”

“Guys…” Steven practically sobbed, crumbling to his knees under the weight of their unrelenting words. Indeed, his greatest fear was coming true right in front of him: the fear that the Gems wanted nothing to do with him. And it was fear that he had no idea how to handle. “P-please… I just… I… ”

“Steven,” Garnet spoke up, standing tall right in front of the doubled over young Gem. Slowly and hesitantly, Steven glanced up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks as he desperately hoped she had at least one kind word for him. But what she did have for him, was anything but kind. “You will never be a true Crystal Gem.”

Steven could no longer hold the rest of his tears back upon hearing this, loud sobs of misery escaping him as he hung his head, ashamed to even make eye contact with any of the Gems as they continued berating him relentlessly. The others were two wrapped up in dealing with their own respective nightmares to help him, which was why Bill was free to laugh at the young Gem’s clear suffering before moving onto the final two members of the group.

“You’re next!” the demon proclaimed, pointing at Xyler and Craz.

“Cool! We’re next!” Craz grinned obliviously as him and Xyler began to dance to an unheard beat. Their partying was short lived, however, as they were both hit by a blast from Bill, knocking them off the platform and causing them both to burn up and dissipate into nothingness.

“My dream boys!” Mabel cried upon seeing this, her voice still low and unpleasant.

“And now to finish you all off!” Bill declared, more than ready to flux his power and wipe them all out easily.

The trio cowered together fearfully at this, knowing of nothing else they could do to save themselves from this certain doom. Steven tearfully looked to the Gems standing behind him, silently pleading for their help, help they refused to give as they merely glared away from him stubbornly. However, while the Gems wouldn’t save them from Bill’s wrath, someone else miraculously came to their rescue instead.

“Hey, Bill!” Dipper shouted fearlessly as he flew in from below, already utilizing the advice Stan had given him earlier. The trio all gasped in shock over his sudden arrival, but no one was more surprised than the demon himself.

“WHAT?!” Bill shouted, startled at the return of the missing member of the group.

“Nice bowtie!” Dipper taunted before enacting what he knew was nothing less than poetic justice. In much of the same way as Bill had done to him, he fired a laser blast from his eyes, shooting a hole cleaning through the dream demon, much to his alarm as he let out an appalled scream. “Just thought I’d return the favor!” Dipper said with a triumphant smirk.

“Dipper!” Steven, Mabel, and Soos all exclaimed with relieved smiles, both of them overjoyed to see that he had changed his mind about helping after all.

“Guys, I just learned you can conjure whatever you can conceive in Grunkle Stan’s mindscape!” Dipper informed them with an excited smile as he glided down to them.

“Huh?” Mabel frowned in confusion as Soos and Steven also looked to him in apt confusion.

“Just think of cool fighting stuff and it’ll happen,” Dipper elaborated more simply. “Like this!” With little effort at all, he fired another laser at the British dog man that had been terrorizing Soos, getting rid of him instantly.

“Heh, he’s dead now,” the handyman grinned with a relived laugh.

“What?!” Bill asked in a heated panic, knowing he was quickly losing his advantage. “Who told you that?! Don’t listen to him!”

“We can do anything?” Mabel grinned, using this new ability to easily return both her appearance and her voice back to normal. “Like have kittens for fists?” At this very suggestion, her fists turned into fluffy pink kitten heads, which she was more than happy to shoot Bill’s way. “P-pow! P-pow!” The dream demon let out another frustrated scream as the kitten fists stuck to him, biting and gnawing violently. Mabel chuckled at this, especially as the kittens still on her fists gave her loving licks on the cheeks. “Well hello, friends!”

“Anything huh?” Soos wondered, lifting his shirt up. “Soos love stomach beam stare!” At this prompt, a rainbow question mark beam fired from the handyman’s stomach, one that was powerful enough to knock Bill right off the platform.

“Oh! I wanna try!” Steven exclaimed, pulling his own shirt up and concentrating for a moment. An excited gasp escaped him as his gem returned to its rightful spot on his stomach, though he had little time to celebrate as he felt a hand fall on his shoulder.

“Steven,” Garnet said, a soft, warm smile on her face. Steven frowned anxiously however as he turned to her and the other Gems, unsure of what they might say to him this time. But instead of voicing any form of disapproval or disdain, the Gem leader merely lowered herself to his level and folded him into a gentle embrace. “Wonderful job.”

“Yes! Well done, Steven!” Pearl exclaimed, clasping her hands together in delight. “We’re so proud of you!”

“Yeah, and sorry about all that junk from before,” Amethyst smirked, rustling his hair affectionately. “You know we’re crazy about you, dude! You’re one of us through and through!”

“R-really?” Steven asked with a hopeful grin.

“Of course,” Garnet affirmed, though her smile soon faded as Bill returned to his spot on the platform. “Don’t worry,” the Gem leader said, summoning her gauntlets as she looked to all of the kids. “We’ll handle him.”

The group exchanged wide, excited smiles as the Gems summoned their weapons and leapt into action, racing for the dream demon. “Whoa! Are you making them do that, Steven?” Mabel asked, impressed.

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Steven shrugged with a smile as he watched the Gems jump at Bill, their weapons raised. However, as valiant as their attempt was, the dream demon was quick to shoot it down, quite literally.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Crystal Chumps!” Bill exclaimed harshly, thoroughly enraged as he fired off a laser at the trio. The kids gasped in horrified shock as the Gems were vaporized almost instantly from it, not a trace of them remaining. Of course, they hadn’t been the real Crystal Gems, but seeing such a frightening sight was more than enough to catch them all off guard. “And as for all of you! Enough games!” the dream demon growled as he began shooting another powerful laser blast at them all.

“Wait guys!” Steven exclaimed, thinking quickly. “I got this one!” Throwing his arms open wide, the young Gem imagined his shield appearing, large and sturdy, and sure enough, there it was. He had never been able to summon it before so easily in reality, but calling upon it in the dreamscape was more than sufficient, especially as it both blocked the laser blast and reflected it right back at Bill.

“Ah! My eye!” the dream demon cried as the blast hit him squarely in his eye, blinding him momentarily. “Darn it! I hate that stupid shield!”

“Nice one, Steven!” Dipper congratulated with a grin.

“Thanks!” Steven chuckled, bringing his shield down. “I’ve always wanted to make it that big!”

Before Bill could recover and try and counterattack, Mabel was quick to come up with the next strike. “Rise, Xyler! Rise, Craz!” she proclaimed, bringing her arms up. As she did, both dream boys rose from behind the platform, fully revived and jamming out a synth drum and keytar happily.

“No!” Bill shouted, horrified. “Synthesized music! It hurts!”

“And now to imagine your worst nightmare!” Dipper proclaimed boldly. “A portal out of Stan’s mind!”

“Out of Stan’s mi-ind!” Mabel sang to the synth music Xyler and Craz were playing.

“Mabel!” Dipper scolded, knowing this was a serious moment. “Everyone, together!”

The entire group immediately started concentrating their collective efforts in imagining the same exact thing. And soon enough, a large, gaping, swirling vortex appeared right below Bill, one that quickly began sucking him down into it. “No, no, no!” the dream demon cried, struggling against its pull before ending it altogether. “ENOUGH!” All at once, the world turned completely white and still, the portal disappeared, and the kids were startled at how fast it all changed. “You know, I’m impressed with you guys,” Bill remarked, his color returning to its usual yellow as he readjusted his hat. “You’re more clever than you look. Especially the fat one.”

“He’s talking about you,” Soos whispered to Mabel, aside.

“So I’m gonna let you kids off the hook. For now,” Bill said, crossing his arms. “You might come in handy later. In fact, I know at least a few of you definitely will… BUT KNOW THIS.” As the dream demon held his arms up, a glowing blue symbol of a six-fingered hand appeared above him, the very same one that was on the journal. “A darkness approaches. A day will come in the future when everything you care about will change. And when it does, I won’t be the only one you’ll have to worry about…” As he said this, the hand symbol shifted into four diamonds organized together, the bottom-most one crumbling apart a bit. “Until then, I’ll be watching you! I’LL BE WATCHING YOU…” Bill’s voice turned low and ominous as two wheels surrounded him, both of them containing a wide array of various symbols, some familiar, some not, each one lighting up faster and faster until, in a burst of blinding light, the dream demon disappeared.

But hardly for the last time.

“He’s gone!” Dipper exclaimed in apt relief after making sure Bill was nowhere in sight. “We did it!”

The group cheered at this victory, one that had been hard earned. Squaring up against an all-powerful dream demon was certainly one of the greatest challenges they had faced yet, but even so, they had overcome it, much to their shared elation. However, it was short lived as all four of the kids suddenly started to fade out.

“Whoa…” Steven mused, looking over his hand as it grew fainter and fainter. “What’s going on? We’re getting all fade-y.”

“Stan must be waking up,” Dipper concluded, rationalizing that they couldn’t very well remain in the conman’s mind if he was awake.

“Will I ever see you guys again?” Mabel asked with a sad frown as she turned to her dream boys.

“In your dreams,” Craz said with a smooth grin.

“Good one, bro,” Xyler nodded, his tone somewhat solemn over this parting. “Good one.”

The group only had time enough to wave farewell to the dream boys before they faded out from the mindscape completely. When the four of them simultaneously awakened, they found themselves back in the shack’s living room, save and sound and back in reality once more.

“Woo!” Mabel cheered, hugging both Steven and Dipper in celebration. “We did it!”

“W-what?” Stan asked groggily, sitting up in his chair as he fully awakened. “Did what? What are you all doing here? And why was I dreaming of two brightly colored and radical young men?”

“Grunkle Stan, you’re ok!” Dipper exclaimed with apt relief, running over to the conman and embracing him. After all, it was the least he could do after hearing Stan’s surprisingly touching genuine thoughts on him.

“What is this?” Stan asked in confusion, knowing that Dipper usually didn’t indulge in such open affection. “A hug?”

“Nope! It’s a choke hold!” Dipper smirked, playfully pulling Stan into said choke hold loosely. Mabel, Steven, and Soos all laughed in amusement as this went on for a moment or two before Dipper relinquished his hold.

“Heh, not bad, kid,” Stan chuckled, jokingly pulling Dipper’s hat down over his eyes as payback. “Not bad.”

“Aw, this is so nice,” Steven interjected with a warm smile. “Everyone’s happy and getting along! I love it when everything turns out great in the end like this! Just like it always does.”

“I’m just glad Gideon didn’t get into the safe,” Mabel said, also grinning. “I really love this old shack.”

“Group hug!” Soos exclaimed, holding his arms out wide, even though no one else did. “No? I never know the right time!”

All of this levity was soon interrupted however, as a small tremor suddenly shook the entire building, one that everyone could clearly feel nonetheless. “Hey, did you guys hear-” Dipper’s question was left unfinished as a large, abrupt explosion tore through the nearby wall. Everyone was sent flying from it, and while Steven tried his best to shield them all from it with a bubble, it quickly burst as soon as they all landed, scattered across the broken remains of the den.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Pines family,” Gideon smirked as he walked in through the gaping, still-smoking hole in the wall. “Did I wake you?”

“But… but we defeated Bill!” Dipper protested, surprised that the child psychic could still somehow claim success after all that.

“Bill failed me!” Gideon snapped harshly. “So I resorted to plan b: dynamite!”

“What? Bill?” Stan cut in, quite confused. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Spoiler alert, Stanford: I got the deed!” Gideon grinned in twisted triumph as he held the deed up. “The Mystery Shack belongs to me! So get out of my property!” The child psychic didn’t spare another word on any of them as he turned and headed out, speaking over his walkie-talkie as he did so. “Daddy? Bring it around front.”

“Uh… so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t see any of that coming, right?” Steven asked with a bewildered frown.

“D-don’t worry, guys!” Dipper reassured rather anxiously. “It’s just part of the dream! We’re gonna wake up any second now, right? Right?!”

Of course, this hopeful optimism proved pointless as they all glanced out the front door to see Bud steadily driving a large bulldozer straight for the shack. No one wasted time running outside for their own safety at this, especially as the wrecking ball abruptly smashed right into the shack’s sign, much to everyone’s shared panic.

“Someone pinch me, dude…” Soos said fretfully as the sudden violence on the Mystery Shack unfolded right before their very eyes.

None of it felt real for any of them, however, until the shack’s iconic sign came crashing down right in front of them, solidifying that this was far from a dream.

It was a nightmare.

To be continued…

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dr-abel-gideon · 8 years ago

Text

Fire and Darkness || Drabble

Triggers: This deals with Frederick Chilton after his encounter with Francis in Season 3 and his death. There’s also the mention of a child’s death. Ye are warned.

Word Count: 1536

Unblinking eyes were gazing up at nothing much but a slightly rippled white lined fabric, the prone form of a badly burned man laying within an oxygen tent, the clear plastic zipped up and around the bed making a large chamber around the man.

The door to the room opened and close, footfalls slowly making way to the bed, muffled by shoe covers that would protect the patient from outside bacteria.

Fingers deftly lifted the patient’s chart, flipping pages and reading the contents from behind a disposable clean suit, hair net and face mask. The doctor’s eyes then scanned the LED monitor that read the man’s vitals, the speakers already on silent so the constant sound didn’t drive the man on the bed mad.

The oxygen tent was then opened and the doctor stepped inside, zipping the side panel back into place. He lifted a bottle of eyedrops and squeezed liquid into each of Frederick Chilton’s eyes, keeping the corneas moist when eyelids could no longer spread moisture across them.

Frederick’s vision was no longer great and the drops caused his sight to waver and become blurrier, but he did catch sight of a human form and the blue of the tissue suit and face mask that was worn. His vision became crisper as he watched gloved hands remove the mask and the face of a man peered down over his.

“Hello Frederick.”

Though his earlobes had been almost entirely burned away by the fire that consumed the rest of his body, at the hands of Francis Dolarhyde, the critically ill man knew the voice as soon as he heard it. It was forever seared into his memory, as connected to hands that had disemboweled him years earlier. His mind raced with a mixture of feelings but he could only manage a weak and garbled “You’re dead,” from a mouth with no lips.

“Yes I am,” Abel Gideon agreed with a small smile, leaning back with eyes glossing over Chilton’s burned body. His nose wrinkled at the scent of disinfectant and decay, charred flesh and salve, all made more prominent in the oxygen rich environment. “So either you’re hallucinating, which is highly probable, or I’m only officially dead. Seeing as I was wheeled out of your basement on a stretcher, or what was left of me anyway, the former seems pretty likely.”

Frederick moaned, attempting to move his head but found he was so numb the motion was difficult. His mind would never conjure such a perfectly infuriating copy of Gideon. “How?”

“Didn’t get a good look at me as I lay dying or dead, did you? I can guarantee that if you looked closely, you would see quite a few little discrepancies.”

Now that he mentioned it, the body pulled out was a little thin on hair, and it was a much paler color than what Abel’s brown tinted with the blonde and grey usually was.

“Oh but Hannibal pulled a good switcheroo, didn’t he? He had to once I escaped from his little death trap,” Abel sighed and leaned against Frederick’s bed, looking off. “But then, I think he planned it that way. I was almost convinced that I was paralyzed and at his mercy. He didn’t plan on me waking from a chemical sleep when he was tapping my spine to make me numb from the waist down. Unless he did. Perhaps it was another of his tests. I bet he thought he was hilarious. Laughing to himself all the way to the oven when he popped in my leg.” Abel stopped, looking back on the grotesque form that remained of the man before him. “Cooked for hours to perfection and then I was made to eat it.” Pausing again, the doctor’s eyes blinked as he felt stomach acid rise up in memory. “Were you made to eat yourself? Autocannibalism isn’t something I would recommend. Ever.”

Chilton took a deep, raspy breath and coughed slightly from the char in his lungs. “Are you going to talk me to death? Please just end me now.”

Abel turned and sat lightly on the frame of the bed, resting against the rail to give his adjusting leg a bit of a rest. “He enjoyed testing me. After you left the hospital and went into psychiatry and before Hannibal did as well, there was a boy who was brought in while paramedics were doing chest compression. Hit by a car. He was brain dead but he was placed on life support so the parents could be notified and perhaps his organs used to save other lives. They wanted to keep him on life support just in case. I thought it was mad. The boy was dead but they were too stubborn to let him go. Then Hannibal whispered in my ear. If something happened to the boy, he would have to be harvested for organs and his suffering ended. After all, if allowed to waste away, the organs may not be viable for recipients.”

Gideon paused again with a sigh. “I never told anyone. I thought about it. It wouldn’t take much. The boy wouldn’t feel anything, anyway. Then we could help others. I agonized over it for a few days but my decision never needed to be made as his parents decided to end it. I removed his organs and his heart, lungs, liver and kidneys went elsewhere. Sometime later Hannibal made a similar call, ending a life on the operating table. I’m also pretty sure when I had dinner at his home that night, he fed me that teenager’s sweetbreads.” Abel’s eyes looked to Frederick’s face again. “I never called him on it. I should have. But I suppose the past is funny that way.”

Pushing up from the bed, he looked over the burned figure again. “I’m not hesitating again. You’re in pain, Frederick.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

“No. Of course you don’t.” Abel reached over and turned an IV fluid toward him. A rack with six packs hung from several metal hooks, dripping down and into the patient. “You have enough pain killers here to make a horse feel nothing. If I turned down the dosage you would probably be screaming in agony. Your body is dying, Frederick. Why do you think they haven’t bothered dressing your wounds? Hmm?” He passed a hand over Chilton’s form. “They know it’s a waste of resources. I’m actually stunned you’re not dead yet. No one recovers from this kind of burn, Frederick. You know that.”

Frederick coughed again, spasming slightly from it. When he settled, Gideon shook his head, gaze soft.

“You may not believe this, but it pains me to see you like this, Frederick.” The former surgeon reached into a pocket, past the sterilized material. “It would have been kinder if you had died from your injuries. You could linger like this for months before your body finally succumbs to infection. This is no way to live.” Gideon pulled out a syringe already filled with a substance and pulled off the cap. “And so I am your angel of death, Frederick. No longer will nurses and staff look upon you pitiously. They will be grateful you’re gone so they no longer have to imagine the agony that is your existence.”

Saying nothing as Abel moved to the saline drip, Frederick growled something then said “You’re a bastard.”

“I never claimed I was a good man,” he uttered, plunging the needle into the tiny opening purposely reserved for administering medication. Gideon pressed the plunger in and delivered the chemical before withdrawing the syringe, capping it and sliding it back into his pocket. “But neither are you, no matter what you tell yourself. I’m merely doing what should have been done with that boy years ago.”

Abel sniffed and turned back to Frederick, tying his face mask back into place. “For what it’s worth, I forgive you.”

“What?” garbled Chilton.

“For what you did to me. Pumped me full of anti-psychotics, hypnotized me, told me I was the Chesapeake Ripper and made me believe I was a serial killer. Then I actually killed someone, much to your brazen horror. I know you had assistance in that venture. You were pushed into making me the Ripper from Hannibal.”

Frederick burbled something but Abel ignored it again.

“Yes you did. I know Lecter coached you. There was simply no way you could have been that effective in making me believe that lie unless you were. Like I said, I forgive you.”

“Fuck you, Gideon.”

Abel tilted his head, looking at the mangled, burned body on the hospital med and silently sighed. “Goodbye, Frederick. Your heart will stop in a few minutes. Normally, you would be asleep before then, but you’re full of so many drugs you’ll not feel a thing. Your vision will go, then darkness will simply come.”

The doctor turned, opened the oxygen tent again, left it and closed it up. “Farewell,” he uttered as he moved toward the door, taking a few steps before his gait straightened from his artificial leg and Abel Gideon left, the man dying moments later and as staff rushed to his aid, he changed in a closet and slipped away.

#;autocannibal au #drabble #hannibal #s3 #death tw #injury tw #child death tw #drugs tw #headcanons #headcanon

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agentmarymargaretskitz · 6 years ago

Text

Roommates AU: It was a Mash

The belated Halloween fic for the Roommates verse that @incendiaglacies and I have which she has been so patient with me about.

AO3

Gideon blinked a few times as the contact lens slipped into place. Felicity had made sure she knew how to this a week ago with personal instruction instead of relying on a YouTube tutorial. Despite having practiced a few times, it still felt strange to be putting something right on her eye. Glancing up in the mirror, she shuddered a little at the bright green irises of her reflection. Creepy as it was, the contacts were what she needed to sell her Halloween costume.

“Wow.”

Gideon turned around to see Felicity, already decked out as Daenerys Targaryen, standing in the hallway. “You like it?”

“Yeah,” her friend nodded. “I knew what you were going for, but it’s a little freaky.”

“I’m sorry to frighten you,” Gideon replied, tilting her head as robotically as she could.

Felicity shuddered. “Now it’s freakier.”

“Perfect.”

The two walked out to the living room where the others were waiting for them. Caitlin was sitting on the couch, Schrodinger purring and stretched across her lap. Cisco was perched on the other end of the couch, trying not to look at Lily. Gideon didn’t blame him for that. This year, her friend had decided to dress up as Medusa and looked about as terrifying as the mythological woman herself.

“You’re definitely going to scare someone with that,” Gideon told her as she walked past her.

“This is not the scariest thing someone could see tonight.”

“It’s up there though,” Felicity told her. “You actually look scarier than Gideon.”

Caitlin shook her head. “Gideon doesn’t look very scary. It’s just the contacts that are unnerving.”

“They are,” Lily agreed.

“I just appreciate that Caitlin, Felicity, and myself are not out to terrify the children tonight,” Cisco chimed in, crossing his hands over his puffy vest.

“Halloween is allowed to be spooky,” Lily defended. “I might have gone sweet last year, but this year I will not let you guilt me about being scary.”

“I already got my scary in last year,” Caitlin shuddered, smoothing out the blue gingham material of her dress. “I thought I was going to have to walk around with white hair until it grew out. Plus, I can bring Schrodinger with me.”

“You can’t bring animals to the museum,” Gideon told her. “Sorry, Caitlin. I already told Felicity she couldn’t put him in the dragon costume.”

Caitlin’s face fell. Schrodinger batted a paw at the basket next to Caitlin as Felicity patted her shoulder. “Dorothy had a dog anyways, not a cat. And he was all black, not black and white.”

“Well, this Dorothy will have a cat until she has to leave,” Caitlin cooed, lifting the cat up to place in her basket. “How long until Rip and Jonas come over?”

A knock on the door answered her question, and Gideon got up to answer it. “Come in.”

“Hi, Gideon,” Jonas chirped as he bounded in wearing red and gold plastic armor, followed by Rip wearing a suit.

“Hey, Iron Man,” Gideon smiled down at him as Jonas lifted the mask. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Yeah. Oh, and thanks for letting us come to the museum tonight!”

Rip smiled. “He’s excited. It’s all he’s talked about this week.”

“Well, everyone’s happy to be putting it on,” Gideon replied. “And what are you supposed to be?”

“The secret agent accompanying Iron Man,” Rip told her. “How about you? And what did you do to your eyes?”

“A Synth, and they’re just contacts.”

“She went on a binge watch of Humans a while ago,” Felicity told him.

“It was a rewatch, Felicity.”

“I haven’t watched that in a while,” Rip remarked.

“Well, I bet Gideon wouldn’t mind watching it with you-hey!” Cisco winced as Caitlin stood up and stepped on his foot.

“And the rest of you…” Rip looked at the other occupants of the apartment. “Dorothy, Marty McFly, the one lady with the dragons, and…Medusa.”

“Daenerys Targaryen,” Felicity corrected as she stood up. “Are we ready to head out? Ray and Oliver are going to be meeting us there.”

“Great,” Caitlin let Schrodinger out of the basket. “We’ll be home too, kitty.”

Schrodinger meowed and made a beeline for Felicity’s room as the girls, Cisco, Rip, and Jonas left the apartment. The museum Gideon worked at was having a Halloween event on the weekend open to the public. Gideon had to work a few shifts and managed to talk the others into going. There would be kids’ activities for Jonas to do and things that would keep the adults interested. Plus, the entry fees were going to help fund a new exhibit angled around STEM for kids, so it would be worth it.

On the way down in the elevator, they stopped at the floor beneath theirs. The doors opened to reveal a mother and her son, who was dressed as Spider-Man. He looked nervously at Gideon but let out a scream when he saw Lily’s snake-filled hair and makeup. The mother pushed him behind her back, sending a murderous look at Lily. Felicity quickly shot out her hand and pressed the button to close the doors.

“Well, you’re definitely scary,” Cisco remarked to her as they kept going down.

“Thanks,” Lily nodded slowly, but looked less happy than she had a moment before the doors had opened.

When they all arrived at the museum, Ray and Oliver were waiting outside the front entrance for them. Ray was wearing a sort of toga, a necklace of shells, and had a trident in his hand. Felicity smiled happily when she saw Lily relax, glad that she had told Ray about her costume a few days ago and suggested he find away to coordinate. Then her eyes turned to her boyfriend, who was dressed in a suit and bow tie. He looked extremely dapper and more like he was going to the red carpet than a museum event.

Felicity lifted the hem of her dress a little to hurry up the last set of stairs to him. “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” Oliver grinned and kissed her. “You look amazing, Mother of Dragons.”

Felicity smiled, glad the plush dragon she’d attached to her shoulder was staying in place. “Thanks. You do too as…”

“Bond, James Bond,” Oliver replied in a British accent. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“No problem. You’re part of the friend circle now that you’re dating me.”

“Hey, Oliver,” Cisco waved from beside Caitlin. “Nice to see you again.”

“Indeed,” Gideon nodded as they all walked together inside. “I have to go and work the trivia booth, but I’ll try to meet up with the rest of you later. Have fun, guys.”

She took off in another direction as the group admired the museum. All of them had been in there at least once before, but not during Halloween. Huge spiderwebs were strung up in the corners and high up in pillars. Orange pumpkin-shaped lights were positioned all over. A fog machine was spilling out smoke that created a spooky vibe in the place. It was spooky, but not spooky enough to scare any of the little kids too badly.

“Wow,” Ray exhaled as they all took maps of the booths offered for the Halloween event. “This is awesome.”

“Daddy, look! I can put a skeleton together!”

With that, Jonas was running off with Rip on his heels. Cisco slipped off towards a table about the history of Halloween films while Caitlin headed to the bathroom. Ray and Lily ended up following Rip, curious to get a good look of what else the event had to offer. Felicity and Oliver were the last two left, both still unsure of where to go first.

“Want to just walk around and see what’s fun?” she asked him after they’d been standing there for a few moments.

“Sure,” Oliver smiled down at her as they started walking. “This is a lot different from last year’s Halloween.”

“Well, we are still having a party for Cisco after work on his birthday,” Felicity told him. “And you’re welcome to come along. After all, you’re officially part of the friend group.”

“And to think last year I’d only met you a few times,” Oliver said.

“Now we’re dating,” Felicity stepped around a boy wearing a horse head. “Did you expect that when we first met when I came into Verdant to get Caitlin’s earrings back?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” Oliver admitted. “Caitlin was already pretty mortified by the time Rip brought her home. I figured she’d never go back again and you’d stick with her on that.”

Felicity chuckled. “That was a bad night for them. They decided to take all those years they didn’t party in college and put it as much of it into that night. Caitlin wanted to distract Lily from ever finding out I had been set up on a date with Ray, which neither of us really wanted to go on but coworkers happened.”

Oliver looked relieved. “Well, if it wasn’t for her, then I would never have met and fallen in love with my girlfriend.”

She stopped in front of a station with a dartboard covered in balloons. Felicity had to replay the conversation over in her head twice. She and Oliver had been going out for a while, but he hadn’t used the ‘l’ word yet. For a while, Felicity knew she loved Oliver, but she wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it.

“Did you just say you loved me?” she asked as they each picked up three darts handed to them by the lady working the booth.

“I did.” He threw one of the darts at the board. A balloon in the dead center of the board popped.

“You love me?”

Another dart popped the balloon next to the first. “I do.”

Felicity smiled. “I love you too, Oliver.”

Oliver’s final dart hit a third balloon right below the second. Felicity set her darts down and kissed him as long as she could.

“Happy Halloween, Oliver.”

“Happy Halloween, Felicity.”

Nate was smirking at her again, and Gideon had finally had it. “What’s so funny?”

“You seem eager to get out of this,” he told her.

“No, I’m not,” she denied as she passed the pint-sized Peter Pan his prize for completing the trivia game she was monitoring. “I’m just seeing how much time I’ve been here for.”

“Uh huh,” Nate nodded. “Gideon, I know that look. You want to go see someone.”

Gideon flashed him a glare. “That’s preposterous, Nathaniel.”

“Now you’re getting extra British. Definitely a sign that you brought a date.”

“You all are so certain that I’m British,” she said in an Australian accent. “And it’s not a date. I just came here with my friends and my neighbor and his kid.”

“That kid who you once brought in because you were watching him and his dad was busy, right? Not a lot of people would do that. Is he the one you like?”

Gideon didn’t say anything.

“It is, isn’t it?” Nate sounded overjoyed. “Aw, Gideon, that’s great. Look, how about you take off early? You’ve only got three more minutes anyway. That’s nothing.”

“No, Nathaniel, it’s fine,” Gideon tried to assure him. “You don’t-”

“Nope,” Nate shook his head. “You work hard enough the rest of the year. Now go have some Halloween fun. I can finish up the shift. Go find that guy, Gideon.”

As annoying as Nate could be, he could have his moments of pure kindness. Gideon grinned at him and walked out from behind the trivia booth. “Thank you, Nathaniel. I’ll see you later.”

It took a little while to track down Rip in the throng of parents and children in the museum. She ran into Oliver and Felicity, thankful she wasn’t interrupting a moment, and managed to find out where Rip and Jonas had last been seen. Finally, she found them in the main atrium of the museum where Jonas was being unwrapped from toilet paper by a little Moana under the watchful eye of Rip and one of Gideon’s coworkers. Ray and Lily were nearby, chatting away about plans for Cisco’s birthday party in a few days.

Rip was the first one to notice her. “Gideon, you’re off work?”

“Three minutes early,” Gideon shrugged. “Nate convinced me to take off early to enjoy some time with the people I brought here.”

Lily overheard that and winked at her. Gideon decided to ignore her as Jonas came over, now free of toilet paper.

“Gideon, you’re back!” he cheered, hugging her legs. “We didn’t get to see your booth.”

“Well, I’m sure your dad will still take you to the trivia booth,” Gideon told him. “I’m glad to see that you’re having fun here.”

“It’s all fantastic,” Rip told her. “You’ve helped create something for the people who live in the city and are promoting the museum at the same time.”

Gideon grinned. Ever since the custody battle over Jonas had ended, both father and son had seemed much happier. “I’ll have to tell everyone else that. This has been such a success that I’m hoping we have a repeat next year.”

Over to the Latin America wing, there was a stand with colored lighting shining up at the ceiling and a DJ working music. A few adults were dancing together in the space of the atrium. There were also some other children dancing or weaving through the adults. Gideon found herself starting to sway back and forth to the music a little. She didn’t notice Rip start smiling at her.

“Daddy?” Jonas asked. “Are you going to dance with Gideon?”

Gideon jolted in place a little as Rip looked down at his son. “Jonas?”

“Gideon’s dancing alone,” Jonas pointed out. “I’m too short to dance with her. She’s closer to your height than mine.”

“Well, you might be her height in a few years,” Rip teased.

Gideon rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know I’m short. But that just means I’m more down to earth.”

Lily laughed while Ray cracked a big smile. “Hey, you two can go dance for a little while. We can watch Jonas for you.”

Rip looked over at Gideon. “Well, if Gideon wants to…”

“I mean, if you want to.”

“Oh, just go,” Lily scooted Gideon closer to Rip. “At least for one song.”

Rip looked over at Gideon and extended a hand. She smiled and took it, letting him lead the both of them out to the middle of atrium.

“I haven’t done a lot of dancing before,” Gideon told him. The last time she’d ever done this was a ballroom dance class offered in college, which had been miserable with a six-foot three partner who had two left feet.

“It’s been a while for me,” Rip admitted. “But I can still remember the steps enough. Just follow my lead.”

“Yes, sir, Agent Hunter,” Gideon smirked as she mirrored him.

Rip shook his head. “Last year, it was Captain Hunter. This year, it’s Agent Hunter. Are you going to have a title for me very Halloween, Gideon?”

“Perhaps,” Gideon shrugged before he spun her around. “It all depends on what you’re wearing next year.”

She was going to have to find a way to thank Jonas for this. If he ever wanted a birthday party here, she could pull the strings to make it happen.

“Daddy and Gideon are good at dancing,” Jonas said when he looked up from the pumpkin he was painting. “Maybe he can teach me how to dance.”

“I’m sure he could,” Lily said. “And Cisco knows some really good dance moves too. You’d be the hit of the party with them.”

“Yeah, I want to know how to dance with Sara,” Jonas sighed.

“Sara Lance?” Ray frowned, twirling his foam trident. “I think she’s a little old for you, buddy.”

“No, Sara Diggle,” Jonas smiled before picking up another paintbrush. “We can’t go to school dances until middle school, but when we get there, I want to ask her to a dance. Sara’s the fastest girl in my class. She’s really smart and funny and she sits next to me at lunch.”

Lily put her hands over her heart. “That’s so sweet, Jonas! She sounds really great.”

“Thanks, Lily!”

Ray smiled at her before a round of shrieks came from behind them. She and Lily whirled around to see a cluster of children shielding their eyes.

“It’s Medusa!” a princess cried out. “Don’t look at her!”

“You’ll turn to stone!” an astronaut added.

“Run away!”

The kids took off in another direction. Lily’s shoulders sunk down and she stared at her sandals. This costume has been a horrible idea. All night long, kids had been covering their eyes to avoid looking at her and running off screaming. She’d had at least three mothers approach her and tell her off for choosing such a horrible costume. It had brought her spirit down quite a bit.

“Don’t listen to them, Lily,” Ray told her. “It’s not like you’re actually Medusa.”

“I might as well be with the way I’m scaring all the children,” she sighed. “I just wanted to do something scary for once, and I went too far. I’m terrifying people.”

Ray shook his head. “You haven’t terrified me.”

“Well, you actually know me, Ray. But even the rest of the girls were freaked out at first.”

“That didn’t change how they thought of you though. They still see you as Lily, their brilliant and creative roommate.”

Lily’s lips turned upwards a little bit. “Thanks, Ray. And despite all the crappy things Poseidon did in Greek mythology, I’m glad we’re kind of a matching set again.”

“Yeah, about that…” Ray scratched the back of his head. “This is the first time I purposefully coordinated with you.”

“What?”

“Felicity talked with me a few days ago and might have told me who you were going as. She also decided to mention that I try to find a way to match with you in the event of your costume not getting well received.”

“Okay,” Lily nodded. “So this is the one year you matched with me and meant to do it? Every other year-”

“Pure serendipity,” Ray told her. “But I’ve always been happy to come over and see that we coordinated with each other somehow.”

“Same,” Lily looked back at Rip and Gideon dancing. “They look happy out there.”

“Yeah,” Ray murmured, following her gaze. “They really do.”

Lily straightened back up. “So, have you gotten Cisco’s present finished yet?”

“Almost. Can you meet me tomorrow at Palmer Tech to help work out the last few bugs?”

“Absolutely. And I’ll bring Jitters.”

Caitlin had lost track of Cisco for a while after they arrived at the museum. All of them in their group had splintered off at various points during the night. However, she’d spotted Felicity and Oliver sticking close together for most of the night. Not to mention that she’d caught Rip and Gideon dancing together while Lily and Ray kept an eye on Jonas. Only now did Caitlin realize she hadn’t seen Cisco in a while and began to look for him.

It took some time before Caitlin was finally able to pick out his orange puffy vest on the second floor. She made her way over to him and leaned on the banister beside him. For a while, they watched the crowd below, picking out Rip dancing with Gideon.

“Everything okay?” she asked as Cisco turned towards her.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“I’m great,” Caitlin smiled. “I lost track of you for a while.”

“We all branched off. Don’t worry about it.”

He might have been fine about everyone separating over the course off the night, but there was still something wrong with Cisco. Caitlin knew all too well about hiding things that were bothering her. It had started after her father died and peaked when she was with Hunter. Right now, Cisco needed to know that she was someone he could trust with whatever was bothering him, and that she would take the appropriate steps to deal with the information. That was what Lily had told her that night when Caitlin hadn’t been able to get on her jacket soon enough.

“Something’s bothering you,” she said. “Cisco, you can tell me anything, no matter what. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But it’s going to sound really stupid.”

“Then we’ll go somewhere private,” Caitlin told him, taking him by the hand and leading him around the corner where no guests were milling about.

“You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I swear not to,” Caitlin vowed. “Now, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing wrong,” Cisco explained, pushing his hair back. “You know that puzzle box that I got from the renaissance faire a while ago?”

“You got as a stress relief thing,” Caitlin smiled at the memory.

He nodded. “It’s been sitting next to the television lately with the Stargate model lately. A few days ago, I got home from work and decided to mess around with the box while waiting for Barry to come home. So I decided to solve it and then put it back together. But when I finished the last step to open it, a ring fell out.”

Caitlin’s jaw dropped. “Like an engagement ring?”

“Exactly. And then I remembered that Barry was fiddling with it the other day. Only one of us is dating someone seriously right now, and based on the evidence, it can only mean one thing.”

“Barry’s going to propose to Iris soon,” Caitlin smiled happily. “Good for him.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed, but he still looked sad. “I’m happy for him. Except it means that I’m going to lose a roommate and I’ll be on my own. Which is fine, I can make rent and everything. But I always hoped I’d have found someone like that by now.”

“Oh, Cisco,” Caitlin put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him sideways for a moment. “You’ll find someone.”

“What if I don’t? Look down there! Felicity’s found Oliver. Sooner or later, Gideon and Lily will realize they’ve met their soulmates. And me? I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone like that.”

“I know you will.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Well, I think you will,” Caitlin twisted a braid. “Tell you what, if ten years pass and both of us are still single, how about you and I give it a shot?”

Cisco looked at her. “Are you for real?”

Caitlin nodded. “You’re not the only single person in doubt they’ll find love. Besides, ten years is plenty of time to still have hope for both of us.”

“Yeah,” Cisco chuckled. “I mean, ten years. Oliver and Felicity will definitely have tied the knot by then.”

“Not to mention Ray and Lily.”

“And of course, Rip and Gideon. Leaving us.”

“Yup,” Caitlin nodded. “But if we don’t find anyone else, if in ten years we don’t find our soulmates, then I’d be happy to spend my life with you.”

Cisco’s smile spread slowly across his face and gave Caitlin a warm feeling. “I would too. Shall we shake on it?”

Caitlin pulled her arm off his shoulder so she could shake his hand. “Ten years.”

“Ten years,” he repeated. “Thanks for listening to me, Caitlin.”

“You’re my friend, Cisco. I’m always going to be there for you.”

Cisco shrugged his shoulders, as if pushing off the weight of knowing his roommate would be moving out soon. “Want to go rejoin the crowd? There’s a contest to see how many lollipops are in a jar that I think I might be able to win.”

“Not if I win it,” Caitlin teased as they walked back to the festivities. “But if I do, then I promise to share.”

Half an hour later, the nine were making their way out of the museum. Oliver had his arm around Felicity’s shoulder as she asked where he’d gotten so good at darts. Ray was twirling his trident as Lily walked next to him and set a reminder on her phone to meet Ray to finish Cisco’s gift. Rip was staying back with Jonas, the little boy tired from all the fun he’d had tonight. Gideon stuck with them, talking to Jonas to make sure he remained awake. Cisco and Caitlin each had a lollipop in their mouth, ones that Jonas had given them after winning the lollipop contest.

“So is the museum going to do this next year?” Ray asked Gideon as they approached their cars.

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Maybe we’ll go next year if things work out.”

“I wouldn’t mind going back,” Felicity told her. “It was a good night.”

“Yeah,” Caitlin agreed as she looked over at Cisco. “It really was.”

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