#I've been needing a good cry

[areyoudoingthis]

I'm still trying to process all the ways in which ofmd has changed my life and I think it will take me a long time to get there but right now the most significant one I can think of is that I've been in the middle of transitioning for a couple of years now and I keep discovering new things about myself every day and it's great, but I was in a really bad place right before s2 happened, feeling isolated and alone and not far from where ed was in eps 1 and 2, and those episodes hit me so so hard but they also pushed me to try to find my own mermaid in the dark and I managed to put into words a lot of what I was feeling for my therapist and make plans to try to get to where I want to be, and then eps 4 and 5 happened and there was so much joy and love and horniness in them and I want that in my life too!!!!!!!!! I want community and connection and love and sex and I want to heal!!!!!! I want to be happy and share my life with wonderful people 🩷🩷🩷

[seventh-district]

Midnight Hour

With the warm haze of sleep fading from you, your brow furrows as your right hand presses lightly against his lower abdomen, your thumb sweeping up and down in a small attempt at a comforting motion. You quietly call for his attention, voice still thick with sleep.

“Star? Is everything okay?”

His typically silent breath suddenly hitches, and his head angles down to face you. Now that he’s turned toward the light, you catch the way his eyes shine, and the way the light reflects off of what you quickly realize are tear tracks, running down his cheeks.

You awake in the middle of the night to find your lover in tears.

Pairing: Astarion x Reader

Word Count: 3,139

Content Warnings: [crying (obviously)] [non-specific mentions of Astarion's past trauma] [this fic was written by someone who hasn't actually played the game and that might show in the details/the lack thereof]

Blinking your tired eyes open, you squint at the light of the crackling fire in front of you. Closing them again, you let out a soft sigh as you try to guess at the current time. Given that you woke on your own, you’re assuming it’s likely close to, but not quite, time for you to take over tonight’s watch shift.

Your group has fallen into a routine where you pair off into teams of two, and a different team keeps watch each night. Tonight’s turn belongs to you and Astarion, and he’s taken the first half of the shift as usual. You usually, ironically, sleep your best on the nights that he keeps watch, in spite of only getting half the amount of sleep as you do on the nights another team has the job.

You suppose you can credit the fact that, at the end of the day, Astarion is a creature of the night. Something about knowing he has the upper hand when it comes to any unwanted nighttime visitors your group may encounter is… reassuring. To you, as well as to the others in the group, loathe as some of them may be to admit it. That is, once they all felt confident in his promises to not make a surprise midnight snack of them, at least.

Tonight is a bit of an exception, though, and you’re not quite sure what woke you early this time. You typically sleep soundly until he gently coaxes you awake, nails combing through your hair, voice soft and apologetic in your ear. He’s always somewhat reluctant to wake you, but he does so nonetheless, having learned his lesson after the first time he made the executive decision to let you sleep the whole night through. His arguments of “You really looked like you could use the rest.” and “What’s one sleepless night? I can sleep when I’m dead.” didn’t hold much water in the face of the way he dragged ass through the entire next day.

In “the spirit of fairness” and “proving that he can stick to an agreement,” he never tried to take the whole shift by himself again. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with how guilty he felt when he heard the disappointment in your tone when you awoke that first morning and discovered he hadn’t stuck to the plan. Definitely.

Laying there in the quiet, you try and fail to pinpoint what feels different about tonight. You don’t hear any strange noises, nothing feels unusual, and blinking your eyes open again you raise your head a bit to look around the fire. The rest of the group are circled around the other sides of the heat source, sleeping soundly. You figure that you’re probably just getting used to this routine by now, and your body simply woke up around your usual shift change time on its own.

Still, that doesn’t explain the vague, unplaceable feeling that something is just… off.

You let out a sigh that turns into a yawn as you stretch and roll away from the fire onto your back. Letting your head roll further to the left, your eyes land on the familiar sight of your lover’s back as he sits in his usual position beside you, diligently watching your six.

He’s taken to placing his bedroll right next to yours, insisting that you lie between the fire and himself. You couldn’t really argue with his point that he can’t feel the cold anyways, so there’s no need for him to be the one next to the fire. Nor could you argue with the benefits of having him as a line of defense between you and whatever lurks beyond the reach of the firelight.

The feeling of security and protection that he provides you with is still relatively foreign to you, and a soft smile blooms on your face at the warm feeling it brings. Your smile then falls a bit as you remember the silent question you ask yourself on the regular, of whether or not you provide him with the same.

You roll the rest of the way to your left, and shuffle further toward him, closing what remains of the small gap he’d placed between the two of you. Lying halfway on your bedroll and halfway on his, you curl your body around his seated form, bringing your right arm up and gently placing a hand on the right side of his waist. He flinches slightly, and if this were earlier on in your relationship, you’d retract your hand. He’s long since informed you though that his reaction to unexpected touch is simply involuntary, and as long as it’s you, you’ve no need to pull away.

You recall the quiet, restrained desperation in his voice when he first explained it to you, all but begging you not to pull away. He can’t control the way his body reacts to touch, given that before you, he couldn’t recall the last time being touched meant anything other than pain. In spite of that though, he wants it. He wants you. That’s obvious in the way that he, without fail, immediately relaxes under your gentle touch once his mind and body process that it’s coming from you. The way he’s come to not only relax, but to lean into it. Lean into you.

You’d never push past his boundaries, never in a million years, but he’s made it quite clear after about a thousand of your quiet requests for consent at every minor touch, that he’s entirely welcoming of your non-sexual physical affections. Getting the man to verbally admit that he actually enjoys cuddling with you, without the truth being concealed beneath a heavy layer of playful banter and practiced, honeyed words didn’t come easy, but he came around to it in his own time.

So, you don’t pull back, instead following through with the motion and slowly snaking your arm around his waist. You press your front against his lower back and curl around to rest your left cheek atop his left thigh. You can’t help but notice that he doesn’t relax into you in the way he usually does, and your head turns to the right a bit, struggling to get a half-decent look at his face as you’re both turned away from the fire light.

He remains tense, still, and unresponsive to your movements, gaze seemingly locked dead ahead of him, staring out into the dark forest.

With the warm haze of sleep fading from you, your brow furrows as your right hand presses lightly against his lower abdomen, your thumb sweeping up and down in a small attempt at a comforting motion. You quietly call for his attention, voice still thick with sleep.

“Star? Is everything okay?”

His typically silent breath suddenly hitches, and his head angles down to face you. Now that he’s turned toward the light, you catch the way his eyes shine, and the way the light reflects off of what you quickly realize are tear tracks, running down his cheeks. He’s actively crying, tears dripping from his chin, and now with his head tilted down at you they take a different path, running down to converge and fall from the tip of his nose.

You nearly bolt upright in your shock, quickly unwrapping yourself from him and clambering around on all fours until you’re sat down in front of him, your hands gripping tightly to your upper thighs in worry. His wide-eyed gaze followed your every movement, and even now that you’re sat still in front of him, his eyes still dart around, frantically scanning you, for what, you don’t know.

“What- what’s going on?”

You keep your voice as quiet as you reasonably can in spite of your shock and concern, not eager to wake your companions and have everyone witness… whatever this is.

He doesn’t respond, looking just about as lost as you feel, shaking his head in silence as more tears fall. It’s one hell of a sight, and it suddenly hits you that this is the first time you’ve ever seen him cry.

Unsure of what to do and what even caused this, you resist the urge to wrap him in a hug, not wanting to overstep in this unfamiliar territory. Instead, you glance back over your shoulder and once again see and hear nothing of note before trying another question.

“Is there a threat? Did you see something that scared you, honey?”

He takes a long moment to answer, seeming unsure, before eventually settling on another shake of his head. His lack of confidence in his answer isn’t the most reassuring thing at the moment, but given that you aren’t detecting any danger either, you decide to believe that he really didn’t see any threat. At least, not here. Not right now, in the present moment, in front of him. He seems about halfway here and halfway gone, and if your growing suspicions are correct, he’s probably been sat here lost in the dark corners of his mind for a while now, given the state he’s in.

You catch movement to Astarion’s right side and watch as Karlach raises up from her prior position sprawled out face-down on her bedroll, propping herself up with her forearms beneath her. Her expression of concern is too aware and her eyes are too awake for her to have just now woken up, and you quickly gather that she’s probably been awake and laying there long enough to have heard your questions and Astarion’s lack of any verbal response. She doesn’t say anything though, and doesn’t move, just letting the situation unfold and keeping a watchful eye on the darkness behind you.

Relaxing slightly at the knowledge that someone else is awake and helping to keep watch now, your focus shifts back to Astarion, who’s gaze has moved to his lap, tears still falling fast. It’s almost unsettling, the way he cries. There’s no sound, no movement, his breathing is hardly even affected, nothing more than the occasional shaky breath to give away any sign of struggle at all. You don’t have to guess why it’s like this, given what he’s told you about his past. You’re sadly certain that he learned to cry like this ages ago. Silent and still, sat alone in the dark so no one would notice.

You don’t want to think about the sorts of punishments he’s endured as a result of showing such pain and emotion, but your mind pulls from what experiences he’s shared and offers up a few anyways, making you begin to feel sick.

Leaning down and trying to catch his gaze, you ask another question.

“Astarion, are you with me right now?”

He blinks, more tears spill, and his lips finally part as he responds to you with a strained whisper.

“I’m trying to be…”

You smile in spite of your current emotions and the general mood of the situation, doing your best to be something positive, something gentle, something safe for him to focus on.

“There you are…”

You say it to yourself as much as to him, relieved to finally hear his voice, as laced with pain as it sounds. You hold out your hand near where his lie balled into fists in his lap, offering him contact without forcing it on him.

“I want you to keep trying, okay? Do your best to come back into the present with me. You can take my hand, if you’d like?”

He stares down at your offered hand for a long moment before shakily unballing one of his fists. He hesitates, fingers trembling, before reaching out and placing his hand in yours. His skin is even colder than usual and slightly damp to the touch, and you couldn’t be less put off, or give less of a fuck about the messy state of him right now, or ever, if you’re being honest. You just want to help him, however you can.

You curl your warm fingers around his palm, wanting to pull him into a hug so badly but restraining yourself, letting him call the shots.

“You’re okay now, Star. You’re safe right now, here with me. We’re safe.”

He’s quiet for another long moment as he shuts his eyes tight, taking in your words. His other fist unfurls, and his body trembles almost imperceptibly.

“I… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Your heart breaks.

“Honey, you have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all, I promise you.”

He shakes his head in disagreement, his voice an insistent whisper.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Your shoulders drop from where they’d been tensely held up, body slumping with a silent sigh as you watch him still try to hold this wall up between the two of you. You’d made it past a number of his walls already, but this one… this one you’ve yet to be granted access behind.

“It’s okay to cry, you know?”

Another shake of his head, this time with far more force behind it, almost vehement.

“No.”

You soften your voice, insisting.

“Yes. It is. You can cry now, Astarion. No one’s gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna judge you. I swear on my life, that’s the truth.”

His breaths become more labored, uneven and shaking.

“You aren’t his anymore. The old rules don’t apply. You can let it out, now. No one, and I mean no one, is going to punish you for it.”

His eyes pinch closed and his head shakes hard side to side, like he’s fighting his own mind, and his hand opens and closes like it wants to grab onto something. He then moves, wrapping his free hand around your arm and suddenly you’re being pulled toward him, desperately, insistently.

You follow the motion as he continues to tug at you, first leaning forward and propping yourself up with your other hand on the ground as he continues to pull you closer. You quickly gather what he wants as he lets go of your hand in favor of latching onto your other arm, pulling you upward, choking back tears all the while.

You raise up on your knees and his hands move once again to hook beneath your arms as you allow yourself to be pulled up onto his lap with physical strength you keep forgetting he possesses. Hooking your legs around his waist, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and pull him into you. His arms wrap tightly around your waist and he buries his face into the fabric of your shirt at the collar, muffling the soft sound of his crying which has now turned to full-blown sobs.

He’s still shockingly quiet in spite of it all, and you imagine it’s a mixture of being unable to let go of what’s ingrained into him, and not wanting to alert the entire camp to his current breakdown.

Your thumbs stroke up and down in place on his back, not wanting to let go of your hold on him but still wanting to give him some sort of comforting motion to focus on. Besides, you figure petting across the entire expanse of his scarred back might do the opposite of calming him down, so you refrain and keep your arms wrapped firmly around him. Turning your head down toward his, you whisper to him in between soft kisses to his temple.

“That’s it, love. Let it out.”

“You’re safe now, Astarion, I swear.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

“You have every right to cry. No one ever should’ve taken that away from you.”

He grips you even tighter as you shower him with painfully unfamiliar affection and acceptance, comfort unlike anything he’s ever felt before in his horribly long life. His forehead presses against your right shoulder as his crying slows, trying to ground himself and catch his breath. You make a point of holding him securely against you, breathing slow and deep to give him an example to follow.

You catch movement in your periphery and glance over at Karlach as she quietly sits up and makes a series of silent lip movements and hand gestures that you don’t entirely grasp. You work them out to mean that she’s gonna take over watch for the rest of the night, and you can rest with Astarion. You send her a grateful look and mouth a “thank you,” to which she waves you off with what you think you read as a silent “don’t mention it” on her lips.

After a short while spent focused on slowing down his breath and bringing him fully out of his memories and back here with you, you whisper quiet words in his ear.

“Your work is done, Astarion. You can rest now.”

You mean it in both possible interpretations of the words, and he seems to understand that, his body finally relaxing against yours for the first time tonight.

“You wanna lie down with me, love?”

He seems like he almost nods, but stops himself, whispering back in an exhausted voice, scratchy and thick from crying.

“Someone has to keep watch.”

You hesitate to inform him that Karlach has already taken over that role for tonight, sure that he’d get no sleep at all if he knew she’d witnessed this. You know you’re gonna be awake watching over him for the rest of the night anyways, so instead, you offer a compromise.

“I can hold you and keep watch at the same time, love. Just… let me sit and you can lay against me.”

He gives the suggestion a moment of thought before nodding his head, reluctantly loosening his hold on you. You maneuver the both of you carefully so as to avoid allowing his tired eyes to catch sight of your obviously awake companion sitting behind him.

It isn’t much of a task considering his eyes are halfway closed already, his only remaining focus locked on you. You settle down at the head of his bedroll, guiding him to lie down and bringing his head to rest in the center of your lap.

Your hands take turns gently combing fingers through his white curls, and you feel his tense shoulders begin to relax at the feeling. You bring a thumb down and gently stroke over the lines creasing his brow, quietly encouraging him to release the tension he likely doesn’t realize he’s holding. You watch him pull in a deep, albeit still slightly unsteady breath, and you can practically feel the relief that washes over him when he exhales.

Words aren’t necessary between the two of you at this point, not in this moment, but you offer him a few anyways, hoping they’ll resonate in his tired mind as he slips into sleep.

“You’re safe here, Star. Rest easy.”

A/N: Like I said in the CWs, I haven't played the game for myself (yet!) so I only know what I've seen in the hours of (mostly Astarion-focused) scenes I've watched on YT. As a result, this might have read a bit funny if I've gotten certain details wrong. For instance- I have no idea how resting at the camp actually goes, whether or not someone keeps watch all night, etc. Also I'm not sure if Astarion even needs to actually sleep or if he meditates/falls into a trance and just calls it sleep, but for the sake of simplicity, (and me being clueless,) when I say he falls into sleep just assume he's doing whatever he'd normally do to rest. On a different note- this little fic was inspired by a combination of two things. The lovely art and additional commentary on this post, by @velnna , and also by me listening to Midnight Hour by Sierra Eagleson on loop for like, an hour, and daydreaming up this specific scene before proceeding to write it out. It is a beautiful song that is now the title and theme-song for this fic, and I encourage you to go give it a listen if you haven't heard it already. Header Image Source: x

[dazais-guardian-angel]

With today's entry, I was rather surprised and confused that Johnathan seemed to turn around so quickly from the absolute pit of despair he was in yesterday, having newfound determination and energy when he's seemingly been completely hopeless and inactive for weeks now (and for good reason). Not that I ever thought he'd completely given up, but there's definitely been a slow decline in how descriptive his journal entries have been to reflect his declining mental state (more robotic, less of his actual feelings about things), and today was a sharp contrast; it feels more like the early entries again. I thought, well, his mind is probably just so cracked at this point that he's looped all the way back around to being bold and energetic again, because by now he's desperate enough to throw caution to the wind: he either succeeds doing something extremely reckless to escape, or he fails and meets his end in a far better way than if he just waits for his fate by Dracula's hands.

...But having thought about it and reading other posts, I realized (probably stupidly obvious as it is) that his sudden change in mood probably has to do with what happened to the baby. Despite how scared he's been all this time, yesterday he didn't hesitate for a single second to try to save the baby once he realized from the previous incident what was happening, not thinking about his own life at all. And then he despaired when he couldn't save the child, the first time he's mentioned crying in the book at all, and then he had to witness the mother blaming him for her baby's death, and being killed herself for trying to rescue it. Now, the day after that horrific and heartbreaking failure, he's suddenly more determined than he's been in ages to escape. Maybe that was a turning point for Johnathan, and lit a fire under him... maybe he's clinging to the need to escape not just for himself and the people he loves anymore, but for the vain hope that he can put a stop to Dracula's schemes somehow once he gets out, because he doesn't want to let any more children die :' )

[dollya-robinprotector]

Me, going into the Summon Room after two days of starving myself: "Maybe if I get the Servant I want then I would finally want to try and eat something! Haha just kiddi-"

FGO gacha god: "For fuck sake here's your two whores with very luxury rainbow sparkles now go eat you fucking donkey!"

[neo-punks]

i just fucking love neopets so much 😭

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

So, pack up your car, put a hand on your heart Say whatever you feel, be wherever you are We ain't angry at you, love You're the greatest thing we've lost The birds will still sing, your folks will still fight The boards will still creak, the leaves will still die We ain't angry at you, love We'll be waitin' for you, love And we'll all be here forever

[deoidesign]

.

[unseeliefaerie]

Good omens season 2 spoilers!

I don't usually get meta out of my brain semi-coherently but I'm seeing a lot of people misunderstanding Aziraphale's intentions in those final 15 minutes and I'm here to swing for my boy

I think one thing people might be missing the undercurrent of is the offer to make Crowley an angel again

It's not just an ooh we'd be on the same side, the good guys, and we'd be allowed to be together, though of course that is some of it

Aziraphale thinks he's being offered the chance to grant Crowley, who he knows has been tortured and almost killed by Hell, who risks punishment to disobey Hell's orders when they ask him to be cruel, divine forgiveness

That's kind of a big deal when Falling is the worst thing that can happen to an angel, besides being erased from existence

It's a way to get Crowley out of a job he hates and the persistent threat of torture, give him the freedom to be kind, as Aziraphale really believes he is deep down, underneath the obligations of being a Demon, without worrying about being punished for it

Of course he would want that for Crowley, that's not out of character at all

Aziraphale doesn't even want to go back to Heaven until it's stated that he can take Crowley with him, that Crowley can be an angel again

Crowley can be safe, and free from the trauma/repercussions of Falling, and they can be together forever in a real partnership

Why wouldn't he see it as a perfect solution?

He genuinely doesn't understand why Crowley doesn't want that

He's been given a chance to give Crowley salvation and protection from harm, and it's so shocking and confusing and upsetting that Crowley doesn't want to be saved, such a sting of rejection that he'd choose remaining Fallen on Earth over being an angel again with Aziraphale in Heaven, that in his heartbreak he ends up agreeing to go without Crowley despite Crowley being the only reason he considered it in the first place

Here's where I want to point out that I don't think Aziraphale understands how the Fall actually did change Crowley quite a bit. From Aziraphale's point of view, Crowley as an Angel and Crowley as a Demon are the same person just with different jobs. He's not entirely wrong about that, and given how often he's seen Crowley do the 'right' thing he's got evidence to back it up

But I'm not sure he knows what Crowley was telling Gabriel, that his own memories from before the Fall are hard to access and he did in essence have to start from scratch and build up a whole new sense of self

And besides that, being cast out of Heaven is a horrific abandonment. You don't just get over something like that when they invite you back - and you don't just get over seeing firsthand that they almost destroyed the love of your life without remorse only to turn around and ask him to run the place now (or all the other cruelty you've seen committed on their orders.)

Crowley has learned that kindness is not inherent in Heaven and having once been an angel has nothing to do with what he believes is right, while Aziraphale is still idealistic about good and evil (tbh Aziraphale admitting that Heaven needs to change is already a huge step in the right direction, it just wasn't enough)

From Crowley's pov Aziraphale is choosing an unjust and abusive workplace over the life they already have together, and asking him to change because he's not good enough as he is, even though that's not how Aziraphale means it at all.

I'm sure the Metatron knew that Crowley wouldn't go for it for precisely those reasons, but I don't think he needed to do anything more than make the offer to cause a rift

Tl;dr I vehemently believe Aziraphale wasn't poisoned he's just a well-meaning moron and the true villain here is miscommunication

[painless-innit-colourful]

Prophets

(1.4k words, no tws, read it here or on my ao3)

But other than the maths of the situation, there’s another nagging thought that tugs at Tubbo's attention, even as Tommy stumbles over the door jam, cursing up a storm, looking far too bouncy for his last day.

He’s seen this before.

With twenty-one hours and counting down until Tubbo sends his best friend to his death, Tubbo reflects on the choice he's going to make and the nagging feeling that he couldn't have prevented it. Meanwhile, Tommy is thinking eerily of the same thing. It's been a year since this stream broke my heart, and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem.

---

Seven hundred and fifty-eight. Twenty-one. Approximately thirty, but who really knows. Two.

Tubbo runs the numbers over in his head. Numbers are good. They make sense, they’re reliable: when everything else is going to shit, when he’s living in a nightmare, numbers can be relied upon to always provide the truth. So, making the last bed Tommy will ever sleep in, Tubbo runs over the numbers again.

Seven hundred and fifty-eight fitful nights since the Manberg Festival. Twenty-one hours (though creeping uncomfortably close to twenty) until Tommy dies. Approximately thirty people they’re going to save.

And two. Two people left he cares about.

His son, with his rosy cheeks and eyes so bright - as if they’ve never seen the scarring flash of a firework or been kept warm by the heat of a burning nation. His innocent, undamaged, toddler son, currently tucked away with Techno & Phil in the tundra, where he’ll be safe in the case that anything goes very wrong tomorrow. Which it won’t, because the numbers make sense.

And Tommy.

He weighs two against thirty, twenty-one against seven hundred and fifty-eight. Mathematically, the answer is simple. Save the server. 

Lose Tommy.

But it’s not so simple, is it? Tubbo is dimly aware as he checks on a stew bubbling on the stove, toes and heart numb, that he’s facing an imitation of the trolley problem. Leave the train running, and Dream and Punz kill everyone on the server. Flip the switch, and their enemies (and Tubbo’s best friend) roll right into a waiting nuclear bomb. 

Save the server. Kill your best friend.

Again.

But other than the maths of the situation, there’s another nagging thought that tugs at his attention, even as Tommy stumbles over the door jam, cursing up a storm, looking far too bouncy for his last day. Or perhaps appropriately bouncy. Tubbo wouldn’t know, but Tommy would.

He’s seen this before.

I’m going to spend the rest of my life waiting for you, he wants to say, because that’s another undeniable truth. Let not third time be the charm: even though he’ll know it can’t be true, Tubbo knows there will always be a part of him that just expects Tommy to… turn up someday. Walk ‘round a corner in the new town he might build. Come stumbling across him somewhere out there in the bright, big world.

It’s not fair: truth three. It’s not fair. None of this is fair, nothing has ever been fair to them. The steam curling off the crockpot on the stove brushes against his scar.

Right. Seven-hundred and fifty-eight.

He can’t remember when it started. Somewhere in the mess of definitely-not-painless-and-colourful sparks, wither screams and the trembling of the earth, there was a single speck of blackness in all that light. After dreaming of his second death a hundred times, he started to look into the blazing light, and found it to be masking darkness. So he reached for it. He followed it. He built weapons of mass destruction, made impenetrable fortresses, dug into the earth following the promise of oblivion. Of nothing.

There was a moment, on his arrival to the crater of the original nuke test, when he’d seen a figure at the edge of the crater. The shadow was counting.

Counting down.

After the nuke test, his nightmares changed. They’d always been full of explosions - fireworks, countries, withers - but with the advent of Project Dreamcatcher’s success, they became pseudo-apocalyptic. Tubbo had always chalked it up to obvious anxieties (he stole his own nuke for a reason, y’know) but in the past few hours, a chilling thought occurred to him that won’t leave him alone.

In some of his more recent dreams, he stands at the edge of the world, looking out over a crater that stretches farther than the horizon. There is not a speck of a living thing around, and without a doubt he is alone. Those were the nicer ones. Some of the nightmares were just loud bangs, bright flashes and a cloud of debris and poison a hundred miles high.

He’d imagined the moment of a crucial launch so many times. A triumphant, even victorious feeling. Check-fucking-mate.

Looking at Tommy, falling onto the sofa with a contented grunt, he can’t imagine he’ll feel that tomorrow. The ticking of the clock yanks him away from his old visions. He moves to sit beside Tommy.

Twenty hours to go.

—

Tommy remembers how it felt, last time. The weightlessness, the empty mind grasping for something tangible to hold onto and finding nothing, the feeling of being ripped apart and reassembled like a wayward toddler’s least favourite toy. 

Tommy won’t admit it, would rather march off to the prison right now than admit it, but he’s scared. This time, Wilbur won’t be there. Bastard, he thinks, grimacing, couldn’t even stay dead for me.

He remembers the last time he saw Wil; on that fucking beach with the boat and the book. He’ll never forget the look on Wilbur’s face when he started crying, that uncomfortable halfway between resolute to go without looking back and almost staying for him. Maybe if he’d started crying sooner, he would’ve stayed. Or maybe that would’ve made him leave faster.

At any rate, he doesn’t have to worry about forgetting any of it. Not while alive, at the very least. Since the revive book will be out of commission, he’s staying in limbo for a while longer than thirteen years. A thought occurs: a horrible impression that sends a shiver down his spine. He won’t have Wilbur to talk to this time, but he might well have Dream and Punz. He shuffles closer to Tubbo instinctively, pushing the thought away.

The book. The other thing he can never forget. It’s gone now, ash on the prison floor likely, but the words within will never leave him. It almost makes him laugh to remember. The last words he’ll ever get from Wilbur, and they were that.

“Tommy,” the book read. 

“Do you remember when we were dead together? I told you I knew how far away the end of the known universe was. I may have been being a little dramatic (so unlike me, I know), but my point kinda still stands. I said it was 186,000 or so days away. That’s not that many, really, already, but I was thinking about it a little while ago and I realised I had been counting in limbo days. 620 days. 

Tommy, on November 13th, something really bad is going to happen. It’s part of the reason I knew it was time for me to go home. Hopefully this is enough warning for you. Gather up the things that matter to you - your discs, your pictures, Tubbo - and get as far away as possible. Please trust me on this. Whatever’s coming - it was fuzzy even in limbo, but it’s big and it’s powerful and it’s not good and it’s going to destroy everything you know. It scares the shit out of me, a little bit, if I’m honest.

I’m sorry for leaving. I hope you understand. Stay safe, yeah?

Wilbur.”

Tommy gazes at his best friend’s face, less than a foot from his own, eyes lightly lidded as he dozes. The hand clutched in his built the rocket that’s shortly going to end his life. The boy beside him will be the harbinger of this world’s ultimate destruction.

Tommy’s proud of him, in a weird way.

Yes, Wilbur, I do remember you saying that in limbo, he wants to reply. I thought you were just trying to scare the shit out of me. Anyway, I can’t leave. I have people I have to save. Be the hero everyone always told me I was going to be. Are you proud of me? This is the only way we win. Tubbo gets to grow old with his son this way. Your father and your baby nephew get to live this way. And I don’t have to deal with any more grey hairs or aching limbs this way. I think I’m the lucky one.

Tears prick his eyes and he blinks them away as he presses his face into Tubbo’s hair - which smells very, very faintly floral - listening to his best friend breathing, pulling him back to earth for just a few more hours.

I think I saw it coming too. I think we all did. I’m sorry. I hope you understand.

Tommy closes his eyes, snuggles down into Tubbo’s arms and draws in a long, deep breath. Selfishly, on the plus side, he’ll never have to live without his best friend.

---

Taglist: @fruitpilled @zrenia @spaceheatertrash @quixoticfellows @kinda-late-but-here-though @icyisweird @boomybelovd @thatfriendlyanon @rozugold @ilexdiapason (please ask to be added if you wish :)

[vitamin-zeeth]

thing is the state of labour is so piss poor I can barely revel in the Tories getting fucked. yay we're not at absolute rock fucking bottom any more I guess.

[imminent-danger-came]

was rewatching season 3, and noticed something that definitely doesn't actually mean anything, but made me pause for a second

at the end of the specials when Wukong apologizes to MK for being a bad mentor, MK never actually accepts the apology. he makes a joke about being able to just get another bowl of noodles and when Wukong explains his apology more, says he knows and plays dumb to lighten the mood, but he never actually accepts his actual apology

I'm probably thinking too hard about something that's just a silly joke but still

Oh, I think that moment was intended to highlight MK's traits rather than just be a "silly joke".

MK has a habit of wanting to move on and pretend every thing is fine. He doesn't want to think about the things that are messy and grey and complicated. He doesn't want to think about Wukong's flaws or any of the ways Wukong has hurt him, he just wants to go back to things being simple and easy, without working through anything. (Think like, 4x01 and 4x02 where MK keeps insisting he's alright, 4x05 where he says "Monkey king will explain how he's definitely not my dad and that everything is fine", or even 4x12 with "Kick this can down the ol' half marathon"/"So they can never make us live our nightmares again!")

MK during s2 feels so abandoned by Wukong, then brushing past his emotions the moment he realizes Wukong "had a good reason" for leaving. Which, Wukong did have a good reason, but his methods were less than ideal, and there are undoubtedly complicated feelings that came from that. Those two just like, fucking SUCK at communicating with each other.

And, it's definitely not all on Wukong, not by a long shot. But the thing is, MK can't acknowledge or talk about his feelings with Wukong, because that would require him to admit that Wukong hurt him in the first place. So I interpret the 3x14 Apology scene as MK not wanting to accept an apology, because what is Monkey King apologizing for? Nothing happened! Everything's fine! When that's just not true.

[dickytwister]

"and if god gives and takes, let me be the one to give you the pain you deserve– and to take away the life you don't." || [x]

taglist (ask to be added/removed): @paralytic-states @stacispratt @just-in-the-nickleback-of-time @perseus-veil @the-universe-in-our-mind

[caterjunes]

i know my body is doing its best but christ alive.

[megumi-fm]

hi i have been inactive for a while due to the chk chk boom. hope you understand.

[moe-broey]

THE MILFS ARE FIIIIIIIIIGHTINGGGGGGGGGG

[caluupin]

Father!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥