#finally got to use some of the slime stims i have saved | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

make-it-mavis · 5 years

Text

Anchor (part 2)

Wreck-it Ralph/Ralph Breaks the Internet AU 3151 words Characters: Make-it Mavis (murder AU), Red (Nice Turbo) Content warnings: discussion of anxiety/panic attacks

Premise: After inviting Red to come keep her company in a moment of distress, Mavis finds herself spilling a bit more than she thought she would... and receiving more care than she thinks she deserves.

Part 1

Red took gentle, but confident control of the situation when he arrived.

He showed up only five minutes later than he promised. His knock at the door was nearly drowned out by Mavis’ blasting TV, and he had to let himself in, as Mavis found it quite daunting to leave the bed. Once inside, he saw what he considered problems and dealt with them quickly. He turned the volume way down on the TV. He changed the content to softer videos. He pulled a couple bars of chocolate out of his bag and placed them on the bedside table. She protested when he went to turn off the lights, but compromised to dim them just a bit. Mavis felt as though she should have been annoyed at him for messing with everything she had set up without asking, but just watching him was distracting enough to start calming her down. She was so curious about him and the choices he made, about his thought processes. She just had to understand how he could be so… different.

Mavis leaned back against the mound of meticulously fluffed pillows on her bed, wrapped in a blanket that weighed a little heavy on her muscles that were weary from trembling. Her eyes were still fixated on the hotel's wall-mounted TV screen, but rather than boisterous gamers, she was watching a pair of hands scrape a knife along a dry bar of soap. She did not quite get it, but Red seemed to think it would help. He sat next to her, keeping a respectful distance that she appreciated his instinct for.

He had been chatting with her a bit, checking if she needed anything, offering her pieces of chocolate, which she could not refuse. Mavis did not say much, or even think all that much. She was just trying to zone out to the sound of his voice. Admittedly, the weird videos he put on were helping, too. They were kind of hypnotic.

Eventually, she asked, “What am I watchin’, Red?”

“That's kinetic sand,” he said, referring to the green substance on the screen that she wanted to stick her fingers in. “They’re stim videos.”

Furrowing her brow, she just gave him a side glance. He saw her not understanding, and there was a glimmer of a smile in his eyes for just a second.

“They help people calm down,” he explained. “Really helpful for people with anxiety problems.”

“I don’t have anxiety problems,” she said, not maliciously.

Red considered that. “That’s okay. They’re good for chilling out to regardless,” he took another careful pause. “Sorry if I came off as... accusatory or anything.”

Her gaze lingered on him for a second, but she turned her attention back to the satisfying videos with a small sigh. “Nah, you're probably right. I don't, uh, really name my issues, I just beat ‘em off with a baseball bat as they show up. I bet a shrink would have a real field day with me.”

Red took a minute to think about that. She could tell he was picking his words carefully. “Well, you don't have to name them, really. Sometimes… it's just helpful to know the shape of what you're up against, going into a fight. Y'know?”

Her head nodded lazily. “Tends to help.”

“Yeah.”

“I don't wanna see a shrink, though.”

“Oh, no, that's fine, too. You're good.”

It was some sort of gallows humor, how untrue those words were. But Mavis left them be. She watched as the next video started, one where heated glass was being shaped into a dragon. After a little while, Red commented, “That is such crazy precision work.”

She said, “Seems like I should have beaten this by now.”

Mavis could tell Red was caught off guard. “...Sorry?”

“You’d think after thirty-seven years, this wouldn’t happen anymore,” she mumbled, unsure if her openness came from a place of trust or utter indifference.

She could feel Red looking at her, but felt no prying, no scrutiny, no anxiety. After a moment’s thought, he asked softly, “So this is a regular thing, huh?”

“Mm… I guess. It doesn’t happen every day. But I’ve had… these my entire life, on and off.”

“Okay,” he said gently. “Do you mind if I ask… what does this feel like to you?”

Mavis squinted a bit in thought, her eyes still trained on the glass dragon being bathed in flame. “Like… it’s like…” her head shook a bit, “out of nowhere, for no freakin’ reason at all… it’s like I’m convinced the world isn’t real anymore. Like, uh… nothing feels the way it should. It’s like everything around me is some cheap stage prop, and just behind it all is… nothing. So I freak out, because… it’s like any second, everything could break, and I’d be swept out into this… void. Drift into nothingness forever.”

Red was quiet. She wondered if he expected her to say more.

“I know that won’t happen. I know it’s stupid,” she added.

“It’s not stupid,” he said. “It’s not your fault. That sounds awful. I’m really sorry you’ve been dealing with that for so long.”

Mavis could not find a response that felt appropriate. Silently, she bent up her knees and folded her arms over them. The blanket fell away from her shoulders as she leaned forward to rest her chin, and her skin felt blazing hot against the cool air.

“Y’know…” he continued quietly, “it’s not fair to judge yourself for still getting like that sometimes. Psychological stuff is… sticky. It’s not so easy to shake. And I wanna say that for the most part, the passage of time alone isn’t a cure-all.”

“Well… yeah, I get that,” she sighed. “But it’s like… in the time I’ve been alive, I’ve had to go through so many changes. For better or worse, nothing’s ever stayed the same for long. Except… this. This feels just the same as it did the first time it happened.”

Red was quiet for a little while again. Then he asked, “Would it be outta line for me to ask… how do you deal with this when it happens?”

“Uh…” Mavis thought, suddenly feeling embarrassed for how ungracefully she had coped with it over her life. All the drinking and buff use… and then the dependence on someone else to make her feel safe. The former was effective, but dangerous… and the latter was very effective, but… mortal.

She spoke carefully, but truthfully, “I just… try to feel things. Shock my senses. I feel as much as I can, as hard as I can. Makes the world feel a bit more real again. When it gets still and quiet, that’s when I feel that nothingness creeping up.”

“And that’s worked?”

“Usually. Not always, but usually. The weird thing is… it’s gotten worse since I came to the internet. Everything here is always moving, and there’s so much of it, and it’s all so loud and bright and bustling… but it’s like it goes on forever. And I’ve never, uh… been quite so alone… for so long. That kinda thing… gets to you. Like… I don’t know what’s keeping me tethered to the world around me anymore. If that makes any sense.”

Red took a moment, but tentatively scooted a bit closer to her. “It does,” he said kindly, “but you know… you’re not alone anymore. Yeah?”

She squeezed her knees a little bit, her gaze falling downcast, away from the video of sparkly slime. His friendliness was ill-advised, given her history… but she appreciated it more than she knew what to do with. Whispers of guilt floated around in her head for not knowing how to give him the response he deserved. The one she wanted him to have.

“I’m here for you,” he insisted softly. “And, hey, if it means anything at all… I believe in you.”

Feeling heavier and stiffer than stone, she slowly turned her head and let her cheek rest against her arm. He was looking at her with a sort of care that was all too sincere for her to understand. They had hardly known each other for a month, and yet…

“Why?” she asked, her voice barely there.

Red blinked, but his smile pulled into his cheek. “‘Cause… I believe it’s never too late to change. No one’s ever too far gone, if they’re really willing to try. I know you can beat this. I can just tell.”

“How, though? How can you say that?” she whispered. “You haven’t known me that long.”

For a second, his eyes turned down in thought, but he met her gaze again with a light, oddly admiring smile. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “What can I say? I just got this real good feeling about you.”

Mavis’ heart swelled, but it sank deep into her stomach. Trusting her was incredibly dangerous. If he only knew the things she had done. If he only knew the disgusting, despicable, arguably evil deeds she carried around on her back. If he could see how little remorse she felt for them, save for exposing such a good person to such a… foul, poisonous creature. Looking at him there, with such pure, easy kindness on his face, she could not help but feel a bit in awe of him. There was a troubling degree of adoration in her heart, but it was inevitable. The world felt so dark, but he was a ray of sunshine, almost too radiant for her eyes.

She took a deep, nearly painful breath, and let it out slowly and steadily. There seemed only one thing to say.

“...Thank you,” she whispered.

Red visibly sighed through his nose, leaning forward. He said nothing, but cautiously reached for her back, carefully watching her reaction. She looked at his hand. Although she had, for the most part, overcome her touch aversion, the instinct was still there to shrink away. But a calm surrender came over her, and she simply shifted to meet his hand halfway.

Gently, comfortingly, he rubbed her back. The touch was so blessedly relieving. She had been so starved for contact since Turbo passed, and finally feeling it again felt so good that she could have cried if her tears had not dried up long ago. As she relaxed, her eyes fluttered shut, and Red took that as a prompt to rub a bit harder, pressing his fingers in enough for a light massage. A long, quiet groan dragged in Mavis’ throat as she realized just how much she ached.

Red’s hand rose to the back of her neck, and he squeezed the muscles there, rubbing with his thumb. “Man,” he said, “I oughtta give you a real massage one of these days. You’re hard as a rock.”

She grumbled, “That’s what she said.”

His hand stopped, and with a short delay, he snorted a brief, dirty chuckle. “Yeah, okay,” he said, patting her back.

The back rubs were really great, but they prompted a greater, uncharacteristic need for closeness, comfort, security… affection. Not daring to open her eyes, she scooted right up against him and laid him back against the pillows, resting her head above his collarbone and settling in. For just a couple seconds, his arms hovered, but he gladly obliged and held her close.

“Sorry I kinda smell like a garage right now,” he muttered with a bit of a laugh.

“Nah,” she breathed. “You smell nice.”

“If you say so.”

He was so incredibly warm, as was typical of a speed demon. Like a hot bath, it relaxed her muscles until she felt herself truly go limp. As drowsiness crept in, she found herself baffled over how quickly she came to trust him, when that was otherwise so rarely earned by others in her life. Maybe it was because he looked just like Turbo, but… she was not sure. It could not trouble her in that moment. She felt safe, which had been a rare thing since she came to the internet. She was not about to waste that.

Still, her weary, dreamy mind wandered, contemplating the terrible darkness from a calm, removed head space. She remained this way for a time she lost track of… and it startled her a bit when words slowly spilled from her mouth.

“When my game was first plugged in…” she muttered, “I didn’t spawn above ground, ready to play, like everyone else did.”

Red’s head dipped down towards her face a bit as he quietly listened.

“Every game had a locked door to this… space… where all the code was stored. It was like a huge, tangled web… made of pulsing, static light… that sort of tingled if you got close… and made your hair stand up a bit. It just… it floated there, by itself, in… this… void. Just… darkness in all directions… No ground, no gravity, nothing to hold onto but hot wires… No sound… Just freezing cold, dead silent, never-ending nothingness…”

She swallowed. “That’s where I spawned.”

Red seemed at a loss to respond. After a moment, he just elected to rub his thumb against her arm and let her continue.

“Just once, the arcade owner entered my button combo to test me out, and I was pulled above ground, and it was… man, it was amazing. ‘Cause I was literally made to do it, y’know? But… when it was done… I reappeared in the dark. I figured it would only be a little while ‘til I was pulled up again, and then I could be sure to grab onto something and stay out of the void, but… it didn’t come. My combo just wasn’t pressed… for ages. I, uh… wondered, for a while, if I would ever come out again. I had no sense of time… but… when I was finally, finally let out, I discovered… I’d been down there for two months.”

Red let out a heavy breath through his nose.

Mavis squeezed the fabric of his shirt just a bit. “It was so long ago, now… and it didn’t even last that long. It feels so dumb to be so messed up about it, an entire lifetime later… It doesn’t make sense to me, why I can’t just… get over it.”

“Mavis,” Red whispered, squeezing her close, “it’s not your fault. That’s such a… I mean, that’s nightmare fuel, what you just described. And to have that be… y’know, the very first thing you experienced in life… I mean… shit, I’m proud of you for even being here with me right now.”

A deep, awful, emotional quake began to shake in her chest. Her body wanted so badly to cry, but it just could not quite make it. Besides, as much as she trusted Red… she never wanted anyone to see her cry.

All the same, she clung to him tightly, leaning her face hard against his chest. He was just too good. He was impossible. He was more than she deserved… but she found herself hoping to the Devs that her time spent with him would somehow last, and whatever disease she carried would not take him away.

She felt his nose press against the top of her head. Lips moving against her, muffled by her hair, he mumbled, “Do you want me to stay the night?”

‘No’ felt like the responsible answer, one she may not have regretted later. But, against her better judgement, she whispered, “Please.”

He rubbed her arm reassuringly. “Okay. Just hang tight a sec.”

He carefully wiggled out of her embrace and slid off the bed, moving to dim the lights just a bit more, leaving just enough of a foggy glow to illuminate shapes and surfaces. Mavis tossed what remained of the chocolate to the side table and spread the blanket out over the sheets again. While she pulled off her socks and slithered down into the covers, Red cast a new video to the TV -- just a dark, serene picture of rain, with the low, thrumming sounds of a downpour laid overtop of it. He was right to assume she liked white noise, and she found it sort of remarkable that he did not need to ask. The fact that YouTube could be a good source of it was something to remember.

Once that was all taken care of, he returned to the bed, pausing at the sight of her lying under the covers. He seemed unsure. “Do you…” he asked, “want me under, or on top?”

Half-muffled against a pillow, she slurred, “That’s what she said.”

Red snorted with a grin that mostly showed in his eyes. “C’mon.”

“Under,” she paused to consider, taking a page out of his considerate book. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Totally,” he said happily as he sat down. “How could I say no, when you look so cozy?”

Red lifted the covers and slipped right in. He looked at her with eyes that were glowing so clearly in the low light, and extended an arm to invite her into his embrace again. Hesitating for only a second, she squirmed over and pulled herself flush against his side again, even going so far as to tentatively hook a leg over his. His arm wrapped around her back and he rubbed her side gently, and his other hand found hers against his chest, giving it a short squeeze.

After a couple quiet moments, he muttered, “...This is nice.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I, uh… don’t normally do this.”

He exhaled softly. “Well… thanks for trusting me,” he paused. “With everything. Even though I haven’t really had a chance to earn that yet.”

Mavis hummed in thought. “Yeah, uh… I guess I just...” she ducked her head a bit, “I got a good feeling about you.”

Mortified at her own sappiness, she tensely waited for a reply. After a moment that felt too long, his chest hopped with a nearly silent chuckle. “You’re sweet,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” she whispered back. “I’m really not.”

“You’re sweet,” he repeated in a musical, teasing tone, rocking a bit from side to side. “Admit it.”

“Go to sleep, Red,” she instructed, fighting a smile.

“Okay,” he sighed dramatically. “G’night, Mav.”

“...G’night, Red.”

“Sweet dreams.”

“You too.”

“Sweet as you.”

“Red.”

He shook with soft laughter again, but she felt him lay his cheek against her head, and the room fell silent, save for the soothing sigh of rain wafting from the TV.

Once she truly settled in, her emotions waged a long, losing battle against sleep. Mavis could still hardly believe what was happening, or what she was doing -- never in her life had she been one to cuddle up to near strangers… or, truly, anyone other than her long gone partner. But with her eyes closed, with his scent, with his warmth… she could so easily convince herself that she was nestled against her Turbo again.

Strangely, though, that night, she could have been just as happy with or without the fantasy.

#wreck it ralph #ralph breaks the internet #make it mavis #turbo (red)#internet AU #fanfiction #was feeling weirdy again the other night and took the opportunity #so here have something sweet for once #i dont exclusively write angst you see!!!!

15 notes · View notes