#(a tag i have never used before and will probably never use again.) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luvvixu · 6 hours

Text

the end

synopsis: the end of your relationship was inevitable. that's why both of you and gojo satoru individually prepare yourselves against the pain and separation of an upcoming divorce. and when that thing came, you suddenly found yourselves trapped inside the circle of your marriage where denial is present, and acceptance is absent. let us all see how the marriage walk through the end.

tags: divorce!au, ex-husband!gojo, angst, hurt/no comfort, mentioned of death, mentioned of trauma, read at your own risk

a/n: here's an almost 8k words of oneshot about gojo marriage again. i've mentioned this before but im taking a very small break and will be back on june 5 with an update regarding to the chapter of mind over matter ff. be sure to check out the announcement!

it was a peaceful morning on your balcony with satoru gojo, your husband for almost two years. you are reading your newly purchased book with your glasses on to help you see the letters.

you take a second peek at your husband who was already gazing at you from the beginning. his gaze was painted with a mixture of sadness and adoration towards you. looks like he had something to say, and you're right, he did have something to say when he mumbles your name.

oh god, you knew where this conversation would be. keeping your eyes bore on him, you fully turned your attention to him and waited for him to speak what's on his heart and mind.

"i think we should file a divorce."

his voice was monotonous and yet you knew it really wasn't, his face also did the same since you also didn't hold one either. your expression still remained calm like he was not asking for a divorce as you closed your book and then put it back on the coffee table.

meanwhile, satoru couldn't read you at this moment because you were quiet, too quiet for his liking. were you so shocked that you couldn't react to his sudden cut of ties? or was it just you already expected this the moment when you woke up?

probably, the most accurate reason and answer was the second one. satoru watches you lean on the seat with your hands clasp on your lap. he also never fails to see the neutral glaze in your eyes.

"if you are wondering why i didn't hold any emotion as you speak, that's because i already reacted a year ago." a sigh escalated from your lips as you removed your glasses also and put it on the table.

"you expected that this day would come?" he said in silence while secretly fiddling with the calluses on his hand—a hidden and canonical habit of satoru whenever he feels anxious and worried.

before this day would come, the two of you got married when both of you were twenty. a young, dumb, and somehow not stupid but definitely reckless who took a big tramp of change among themselves.

satoru was the one who asked you to get married after almost four years of being inside an on and off relationship. that was very fast and very reckless at that time—but of course you agreed because you are a fool to get yourself blinded by your love towards him.

so, the two of you got married and with only some people whom you both held close dearly attended the said wedding. it was simple and civil, but to you, it was your everything. the wedding and this marriage mean so much to you.

your marriage went pretty well in your first few months of being married. both of you got yourself a house with a nice garden that you absolutely adore, you also got yourselves a work almost instantly too. satoru got more missions since he was now a graduate, while you work in your own cafe and occasionally take jujutsu stuff.

things were really fine with heaven as the witness. until one night during your almost first anniversary, you caught him going home around three to four o'clock in the morning with a smell of alcohol and woman's perfume that's definitely not yours. he's really drunk, which was weird because he hates alcohol. you wondered what's the occasion or any celebration that should be celebrated and whatnots, but you can't think of any. so that leads you to silently crying.

you did not confront him about your first suspicion of cheating, you want him to admit it himself, but that doesn't mean you're going to tolerate that piece of shit because for god's sake! there's a fucking hickey on his neck that night, you knew it wasn't yours since you've barely had an intercourse due to both of your busy schedules.

you remember asking him about his whereabouts that night like you weren't aware, but his answer just disappoints you, he told you that he had an emergency mission and needed him in action asap at kyoto around 11pm and it took him some time to finish it. as mentioned before, his answer disappoints you, because your assumption has been partially proven.

satoru was clearly lying about his whereabouts that night but still the cheating allegations were not clear. maybe the seemingly foreign hickeys on his neck was already evidence but you're probably still in denial, so you didn't instantly conclude that he was really cheating with you.

but you still couldn't shake off his illicit affairs. why? because satoru was lying about the emergency mission on kyoto. he wasn't there, you knew that because you were the one who took the mission, not him. satoru actually rejected the mission because he's busy with other matters so you took it yourself without even telling him.

all of these things that are happening leads you back to that day when he proposed to you. it was so sudden that it made you a little bit skeptical. but when you asked him why he suddenly asked you to get married? easy, you didn't know.

however, you had your hypothesis that after geto disappeared and went on his rebellious phase, you let gojo use you to relieve his grief. that is why when you realize that this marriage is meant to not last long, you secretly cry to yourself during your first year anniversary as a married couple.

meanwhile, satoru knew to himself that he couldn't stand a long-term relationship. though he also started to feel bad for making things go very quickly with you, his love towards you is pure and genuine. in fact, he would do anything just to keep you safe and happy. but he wasn't able to do that when you're the opposite of him.

he is selfish and you are selfless.

no matter how hard he tried to change or even make things up for you, he just couldn't do it. there's this invisible dark string that pulls him inside the void of darkness. and he couldn't afford to bring you down with him. the thing that geto did really left a scar, a permanent scar to his chest that creates an inescapable hole that keeps on growing bigger and sucking his life in the process.

while you, you fully commit yourself to him. that's why everything would be pointless for satoru to let himself get hurt just to protect you. because you would literally throw yourself in the fire when he's burning.

it was like the two of you are a magnet with the same pole. you can't attract each other no matter how hard you try to let them collide.

back to reality, your head was faced downward. your husband sought for your eyes by calling your name meticulously, but you refused. an internal laugh at your pathetic figure rang through your mind, you are laughing at yourself for believing that you are already prepared for this moment, turns out, you're not—you’ll never be.

satoru mumbles your name again. and all of the sudden, you just let out a nod, followed by a small sigh. you let yourself look at him again despite the unnoticed tears in your eyes.

"okay, but let's spend this whole day as husband and wife for the last time. let's do the things we usually do during our free time." you said, and satoru agrees with you almost instantly. he thinks this is the least thing he could do for you before setting each other free.

everything went normal for the rest of the day. satoru takes you out for lunch, visits your favorite cafe for desserts, and even goes to the park where he asked you out to be his wife.

and right now, the two of you are in the cemetery, specifically in haibara's graveyard. the sun was proceeding to its dusk, making the place a bit solemn because of its ambience.

"do you think he'll be mad at my decision?" your soon-to-be ex-husband asked you with his small tired voice. haibara was your bestest friend of all and he actually talked to gojo when he's still alive about his relationship with you. he would like gojo to take care of you and treat you more than you deserve in your entire life.

"i don't think so. haibara only wants the best for us. he's a man of freedom, after all. and yet, how ironic because he, himself, has no freedom during his time in the jujutsu." you answered him as you watched the candle burn itself.

satoru looked at you. "how about you, y/n? are you mad at my decision?" he asked you a bit hesitant.

you just smiled at him and said, "i will answer that later, satoru." satoru nodded at your answer, he understood that you had a lot to say to him later.

after some time, you two decided to go home to your shared apartment. the journey back was fun and relaxing, it was filled with smiles and laughter that will soon vanish as the dawn is coming.

6:00 PM

both of you arrived at home. you helped satoru hang his coat on the raker like you usually do whenever he comes home during winter. this small act is something that would be definitely missed by him dearly, since you will not be around to do it.

"thanks for agreeing to go out with me." you said to him with a smile that almost reached your eyes. the only thing that stops you from giving your bestest smile was the divorce, but you subside because this is your last day as a married couple. you have to enjoy it to the extent.

"that was the least thing i could do for you before…nevermind." he said. satoru was not cheerful enough to make you smile whenever your eyes met. you also noticed that he was downhearted since you visited haibara's graveyard.

though as you were heading in your shared apartment, he was smiling and laughing. guess you didn't overlook him at all and you failed to notice his hidden pain.

you watched him lay down on the couch. "you looked bothered. was it because i didn't answer your question earlier?" you said quietly.

satoru didn't say anything, and according to his vocabulary, silence means yes. you sigh to yourself and take a seat on the same couch where your husband was lying in.

your hand reached out for his face, cupping it as satoru looked at you with his hooded eyelids. those magical six blue eyes are staring at you with known emotion, pain and agony.

"you didn't ask me why i suddenly wanted to get divorce…" he mumbles, nestling his head in your palm.

"you agreed without questioning me. i don't even see you cry about this. why y/n? are you hurting yourself by keeping your emotions inside you?" he continued. the pain in his voice breaks your heart into bits of pieces. satoru looked so vulnerable, his true emotions are showing exclusively for you.

you let out a small but bitter chuckle. "crying is not part of the things we usually do during our free time together, toru." his eyes widened at your answer. a droplet of tears slide down on your palm. satoru was crying, and you let him weep because you knew he's pent up.

"and i'm not mad at you. i also didn't ask you any questions because i know you know what you are doing and i respect your decision." you added.

"although, i admit. i want to bawl my eyes out. i want to scream because my heart is aching for believing that i was prepared for this moment." your breathings started to become shaky also just by watching satoru weep under your touch.

you refused to cry. at least not now.

"but i don't want to ruin this day by crying. i want both of us to savor this moment with smiles and laughter. so that when we part our ways, we wouldn't have any regrets to hold."

"so, satoru…let's continue to spend the rest of our night happily, hmm?" you let yourself smile for him to be motivated to stop from crying. however, he did the opposite. satoru cried even harder.

your hand is being cradled by him. you could feel his tears on your palm followed by his little hiccups. this scene alone in front of was usually enough to make you cry even harder than him. it was utterly heartbroken to see your man cry like this.

"hush, my…" love, that's the word you would like to say but forbids you to do so. satoru also noticed it too and he absolutely hates the feeling of it.

"l-love. call me love. c-call me like you used to call me before. first name basis is not part of the things we usually do during our free time together." he mimicked your words earlier. though it may sound like a joke, it isn't. satoru has been dead serious since the beginning of the day.

"my love…"

"y-yes, my sweetheart?" he responded.

your lips quiver from the overflowing emotions in your chest, but you still refuse to let yourself cry even when you're all by yourself. god, you are hopeless and devastated.

but dear me, it felt so good to hear him call you with endearing words. oh how you wish this kind of moment would last forever. maybe in another life, it would be. only if fate would be kind enough to give satoru to you again, maybe it will and it would be.

8:00 PM

satoru was all alone. his eyes were puffy from crying and stuff. he was such a mess. and if anyone would see, they would probably think that he's a zombie because of how low energy he was.

it took him almost an hour to stop crying. and you declared that this is the first and would be the last time that you would see him cry very hard.

right now, he was currently packing his things as he was about to move out tonight while playing betty by taylor swift. somehow, his mood got even more affected by this song, for every lyric hits him hard and he doesn't know why.

"♪ you heard the rumors from inez, you can't believe a word she says ♪" the radio sang. a shaky sigh came out from his mouth, he felt like crying again.

“♪ most times, but this time, it was true ♪”

"let me help you pack your things." you suddenly barge inside your onced shared bedroom after cleaning up for tonight. you are also in your sleep wear when satoru looks at you.

“♪ the worst thing that i ever did, was what i did to you ♪”

you didn't fail to notice that he is listening to one of your favorite artist's songs. a flashback hits you, it was the moment where you persuade him to listen to it with you. now, he has grown invested in their songs.

he mumbles a small okay as he watches you sit down beside him and redo the messy clothes he just stuffed inside his luggage. most of his clothes were luxurious like polo shirts, slacks pants, coats, and his favorite, blindfolds.

your eyes soften when you come across a small pouch that contains hair ties and bobby pins you onced bought for him as a prank. you still remembered the moment he let you tie his messy white locks with colorful pins and he looked so incredibly pretty with it. you couldn't help but to feel yourself getting emotional again.

don't cry. don't cry. don't cry.

meanwhile, satoru remained very quiet, for he was staring at the photo in his hand. it was your wedding photo where the both of you are wearing traditional japanese attire. he couldn't help but stare at your smiling face for too long. you looked so beautiful.

the wedding was very simple, but satoru describes it as one of his happiest days, and he is not lying to himself whenever he would say that. because he onced dreamed of getting married to you, and it came true. he also had the same state as you, both on the verge of crying.

"i wonder…would you get remarried someday?" he asked out of the sudden. you shifted your gaze to him and found him staring at your wedding photo. instantly, your eyes went soft.

"i am not sure." you replied silently as you closed his luggage and proceeded to the other one.

your hands momentarily stop working as you stare at them and watch it shake. "but if i do, it would probably take me a decade or so to find another husband to love." you said. but truth to be told, you had no motivation left to find another husband.

"you're twenty-two right now. so like…you'll be thirty plus by then when that happens," he calculated. "how about you? would you consider getting remarried also?" you asked him the same question.

he thinks for a moment before nodding slightly. "probably yes." your heart let out a wince but you tried your best to hide it. those words unintentionally hurt you and cut you deeper than a knife.

"w-well, i just wished good luck for both of us in the future." the crack in your voice didn't go unnoticed by satoru. he was about to reach you but then eventually dropped it. "me too…" was all he could say.

"anyway, do you mind if i ask…where are you staying after this?" you trailed off.

"i'll stay with higuruma for a day before moving out to my new apartment. speaking of that man, i told him to be here around midnight. so we still have four hours to be together." he answered

"...yeah."

10:00 PM

the two of you are sitting on the same seat just like this morning in the balcony. you are wearing your favorite cardigan as satoru was in his coat to fight the cold weather of the night.

all of his things were already packed and ready to leave. soon, you'll be alone and this house will not be lively as usual because his presence will be missed.

both of you refuse to say a word, yet. because you two are scared to have another breakdown that made this marriage even harder to break. especially satoru, he was aware that deep inside him he was not ready to let you go. he was just lying to himself because he is aware that he can heal if he gives himself some time.

"y/n, can i hold you here in my arms?" satoru swallowed all of the bitterness he felt for leaving you just to hold you again, for one last time. you slowly stood up from your and came towards in front of him.

your soon-to-be ex-husband gazes upon you. however, you refuse to meet those warm eyes that you loved the most. satoru slowly pulls you into his lap and cradles you like his greatest treasure, which you definitely is.

when your face hits his shoulder, you couldn't help but to hide your face deeper into his neck. "the place i'm going to stay afterwards is far from here. are you sure you will be okay?" he whispers in your ears.

"yeah, i'll be fine." you nodded solemnly. "i also planned to stop from my work for a while." you added.

"why?" satoru raises his eyebrow. he thought you loved your job as a barista. you enjoyed making coffee and wherever there's extra pastries left in the cafe, you would take it home for him to try it.

"don't worry, i had a lot of fortune that could last for a century. and besides, you even said i had a midas touch, so surviving won't be too hard for me." when your parents died, they left all of their fortune to you. so that makes you an instant millionaire and nobody knows that beside your husband.

satoru gently pushes you to meet his eyes. "i think this moment is perfect to give all of my secrets away. i don't need any perfect lies to hide from you anymore." he tucked the loose hair on the back of your ear, admiring your beautiful frame under the pale moonlight.

he gulped nervously, and for some reason, you're becoming very anxious about what he's going to tell. all you had to do was to wait for him to speak his thoughts out.

"the reason why i want to divorce is to have a new life and forget about the past. that includes you, y/n." though he only started, millions of knives already stabbed your poor heart. your eyes stared at him, a bit widely.

satoru couldn't bear to look at your pained expression, but he forced himself to look at you. so that you would feel his sincerity. "before suguru disappeared, he once told me to choose another path of life. he told me to run away from the jujutsu, run away from my life." he said, almost whispering.

"although, i want you to come with me. but…"

"i somehow got myself involved with the jujutsu too?" you continued it for him. satoru falls silent, so that means yes, it is true.

satoru cups your face. "i'm sorry, y/n. i really, really love you. but this is not the right path for us. you'll get more hurt if you continue to get tangled with me. so, after a lot of thinking and consideration…"

"i became selfish once again. i chose myself over you, y/n."

for the nth time, the walls you have been building around your emotional state are starting to shake once more. you could feel the hot tears building in your eyes.

you will not cry. you will not cry. you will not cry.

"i-i understand…although, you don't have to apologize for choosing what is the best for you. i'm actually glad that you're finally doing it." you plant your palms over his hands on your cheeks, closing your eyes to swallow up those annoying tears.

"i'm such a bad husband, aren't i?" satoru chuckles weakly. what has he done to deserve you like this? your understandment is something that he greatly admires in you. your heart is pure like an angel from above.

an angel like you can't fly down hell with him.

but god, you're making yourself willing to go down with him without any hesitation and that is just completely wrong.

and for the past years, satoru would make a mistake and you are there to correct him patiently. he would always tell himself to make something and make everything up for you. but who would have thought a divorce is the best thing to do?

"to be honest, not at all. remember what i told you before we got married? you are the fire and i'm the—"

"gasoline?"

"no silly, that's a song." your laugh brightens up the atmosphere. satoru smiled at your happy demure, he likes seeing you this joyful.

"you are the fire and i'm the fireman. a fireman would not function completely when there is no fire. meaning, why would i, a fireman, be here if there's no you, a fire." you raised your fingers to help you visualize your point.

"does that make sense to you?"

satoru shook his head. "no."

you snapped your finger. "exactly! you think i'm bad at explaining things, while i think of myself as great at explaining things. that's the same as you thinking you're a bad husband, while i think of you as a great husband."

"..."

"i made you speechless, meaning you agree and i'm great at philosophy!" you boosted yourself by imagining a crowd was giving you a round of applause.

your husband wonders for a moment before cackling a laugh. "that still didn't make sense to me but it brought a lot of comfort to me. thank you, y/n."

"come on! just admit you love my philosophical nonsense." you pouted, hitting his shoulder playfully.

satoru laughed once again, pulling you by waist as he buried his face in your hair. "of course i do. i love everything about you." and he would still do, always and forever.

"i'm going to miss this." you mumbled as you relaxed on his touch. satoru also agrees, kissing your head all over again.

"and i'm going to miss you too, a lot." he said sincerely. the two of you held the longest stare on this day. you just let yourselves drown with each other's enticing orbs.

satoru was the first one to break the record by sighing and rubbing his eyes. the truth is, he couldn't bear to look at you any longer because he could see how broken you looked through your eyes just because of him. instead, he hides his face once more on your neck.

“i'm really, really, really sorry, y/n. i'm so sorry for using you. i’m so sorry for cheating on you. i’m so sorry for hurting you. i'm so sorry for not choosing you again. i'm so sorry for being selfish. i'm so sorry for everything." there it is, again. his hot tears are back and now drenching your shoulder.

"i used you as a getaway from my sins and from the grief that day, y/n. you should've said no when i asked you to marry me, but why did you do the opposite?" his voice became slightly thicker, he's definitely frustrated.

"i did it for love, satoru." you answered without hesitation.

satoru momentarily stopped crying as his breath hitch. "yes, i'm already aware of your true intentions that day. but i still chose to marry you because i love you. i know it sounds so dumb but it's true." you continued.

you could feel his arms around your body tighten, scared of letting you go from nothing. it was like he was begging the gods, if there was one seeing the both of them right now, to let him be delusional and not take you away from him.

"let me ask you this time, do you regret marrying me?" you whispered.

your husband looked at you with unshed tears. "i don't. but i regret that this is the end of us."

why is it always the time where someone would tell their true feelings when everything is falling apart? so if this divorce wouldn't happen, does that mean his word would be forever kept inside him?

"i've always wanted to tell you that i was actually glad that you became my wife. i thought you would be my endgame. instead, you became the reason why i am still here and breathing."

the void of regret is slowly pulling him inside. but you are there to make sure that he would survive the gravitational pull. you just loved him so you will help to let you go.

"i love you, my sweetheart, my y/n, m-my wife..."

12:00 AM

it was quiet, really, really quiet. higuruma was looking at the two of you all over again. his eyes showed sympathy for both of you and he was sad because this is the end for you and satoru.

right now, both of you are staring blankly at the divorce paper on the table. no one was making a first move by signing it.

you let out a sigh, a heavy feeling was buried deep in your heart. your whole body feels so numb and you still haven't cried for today. everything feels so wrong, yet at the same time it feels right. you don't know what to do anymore.

as you recall your conversation with him, you just wished it didn't end and would continue forever. because you know you'll never get tired of hearing his voice, his laugh, and his philosophical nonsense too.

not to mention, you've also dreamed of building a family with him. a mini satoru and mini y/n sounds nice, doesn't it? as your eyes wandered across this apartment, you can depict your children with him running around. god, if you were dreaming, please don't wake up.

"higuruma, can you please just wait for me in the car…? i-i would like to have a final conversation with my wife." satoru suddenly spoke and nanami left without hesitation.

"so this is it?"

"yeah, t-this is the end." satoru chuckles breathlessly. there was like a big chuck on his throat that made him feel suffocating. truth to be told, he doesn't want this to be the end. but again, he has to.

"thank you for giving me a total of the best six years of my life, toru. i mean it, thank you." you counted the first four years of your relationship and the two years of your marriage. playing with your hands to mend the shakiness, it was a constant reminder that only a few minutes left before the surname satoru would be stripped of your name.

"thank you too, y/n. i also had so much fun and love these past six years. thank you for all of the things you have done for me." he said silently.

all this time, you are the only one looking at him because his eyes were focused on the paper in front of him. "good luck on your new path. i wish you the best." you intentionally called his attention.

"you're really staying here in this apartment…alone?" satoru asked you.

you let yourself smile slightly as you shifted into a more comfortable position. "yeah… just in case you feel homesick, this would be a reminder that you still have a home…only if you want to." the air in this room is very thick and it's suffocating you.

"t-thank you, y/n, really." he expressed his gratitude once again.

a nagging feeling tells you that satoru was about to go back on his decision at any minute. and you too would probably go back to your decisions you had set for both of you. it would be more devastating for you if satoru didn't achieve his plans for himself in the near future.

"let's not make higuruma wait."

satoru falls silent. now he was stuck in a madness of a dilemma. in short, he was starting to rethink his decision to the point that he didn't notice he was staining the divorce paper with tears. his hands began to shake violently along with his cries becoming louder any minute.

satoru finally lost his cool as he wailed loudly in front of you. the sound of his sobs made you clench your lip as your chest tightened once more.

you on the other hand, you're trying your best not to slip any tears down from your cheeks. you successfully stopped them from falling this morning, you couldn't afford to cry not because there's only a few minutes left before you would let yourself fall into a pit of sadness.

sensing that neither of you would make a move, you are aware that satoru couldn't bring himself to do it even though he had to. so, you gently steal the paper away from him.

divorce agreement…it read. oh how you despise those two words.

"satoru, i mentioned to you a while ago that the reason why i want to spend this last day as a married couple is because i want us to leave without holding any regrets." you started with your pen touching the paper. satoru's eyes widened, he wanted to stop you from doing it but nothing was coming out from his mouth.

"i can see it in your eyes, you're doubting your decisions." you continued as you wrote your name. in satoru's horror, only your signature is needed and everything would be over for him.

however, you stopped writing. you tapped the table to gather his attention to you. there he saw you smiling dearly at him.

"did you have fun spending time with me this whole day?" satoru knows your intention. you are encouraging him to do what he was supposed to do even if it means leaving you.

"yes…yes i do, i enjoyed being with you." he stuttered. the tears were still streaming down his face and he was using his sleeve to wipe it. you reached for the tissue and gave it to satoru as you watched him wiped his eyes and blow his nose.

"that's good to hear. i also had fun being with you. not only for this day, but the whole time i was with you, i enjoyed it." you grabbed his hands to soothe it by massaging those long and calloused fingers. satoru watches you and eventually becomes slightly calm by your actions.

you inched your lips into his fingers and kissed it delicately just like he used to do with you before. everything went blur to him and only the sound of your sweet nothing was audible into his messy world.

"i know you'll be doing great with or without me. so satoru, put more faith in yourself. this is another big step for us, and i want you to be ready just like i am." you swiftly slide the divorce paper in front of him. but this time, it has your signature on it.

satoru felt like he was being showered by the cold water as he stared at the paper with pure horror evident on his face. you finally did it, so there is no turning back now.

"h-how—when…! when did you sign it?" his voice cracked due to his frazzled emotions firing him repeatedly. satoru reaches the highest point of heartbreak he ever experienced in his life.

"when i gave you the tissue." you whispered weakly. to your dismay tears are only a slip away from your eyes a thousand times today.

"i don't want to sign it. i don't want to! i don't want to leave you anymore y/n!" he yelled. you accepted his lash out with open arms, but you can't do anything anymore. you finally signed the divorce settlement, and this paper wouldn't go if there's no signature of satoru.

you suddenly pull him into a passionate yet heartbroken kiss to shut him up. satoru eventually responds to your kiss, becoming more emotional than ever. while you are busy keeping him in company, you sneakily put the pen in his hand.

satoru felt an object in his palm, he knew you're telepathically telling him to sign the paper but he still refuses to acknowledge it, at least not yet. as he continues to devour your lips, his eyes are still producing salt tears that add more emotions in the atmosphere.

"i could see a bright future ahead of you, satoru." you muttered between the kisses.

"mhmp—you should grab it, please." you continued to deepen the kiss to lure him. but he voluntarily stepped away just to make a counter argument for that.

"but i could lose you if i do that." he whispers solemnly.

"we've already lost each other when we realized that everything was going too fast for both of us." you chuckled bitterly at your statement. "that it why it is time to face the consequences, by setting us free." you added.

"do…do you really want to do this?" he hiccups.

"this is what fate wants us to do." your voice is soothing as hell. it held no grudges nor resentment, just pure calm and adoration towards him.

but satoru still didn't bug and he still doesn't want to sign the papers.

your gaze never leaves him as satoru buries his face on his palm, weeping so quietly that you could almost hear a pin drop. it was getting so hard to watch so you looked away and slowly walked away.

"i am going out for a bit." you mumbled quietly, not waiting for him to reply or look as you walked away with your whole body shaking.

outside, there you saw higuruma leaning on his car exterior. "hey…" you greeted weakly. higuruma looked at you with a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

"hey…how did it go?" higuruma asked, his gaze falling on the papers in your hands.

"emotional." you joked.

"so, that's the end now?"

"...yep, that's the end now."

silence engulfed both of you, just your almost steady breathings and his observing orbs burning through your skin.

"never thought satoru could cry harder than he did when geto-san…you know." higuruma said, sighing as he tucks his hands on his pockets.

you nodded. "i know. satoru lost suguru literally, while he only lost me through relationship. he'd become more vulnerable around me, and that scares the hell out of me."

"i, his weakness, has become more exposed to his enemies. i know sooner or later, they would swoon to get me just to make him fall on his knees. we don't want that to happen, i don't want to be a bait nor a cause of his downfall. temporarily or permanently, satoru must not fall, no, not anymore." you continued.

"y/n-san, i hope you would also realize that failures, downfalls, mistakes, and damages are unavoidable, gojo-kun is no exception to all of that." higuruma argues.

"satoru is going to live a good life and have a future that he deserves, so who am i to halt it?” you ignored what he said because you know he was right.

“this is a big step for both of you. i just wished that everything would go well for the two of you.” higuruma smiled at you.

“we will, eventually.” you return the smile and then excuse yourself to go back inside, just to see satoru still crying nonstop.

approaching his figure, you wrapped your arms around his body to console the man. “don't go back to me now, satoru. if you cannot bring yourself to let go, then i will help you.” you whispered into his hair.

satoru pulled away just to look at you with his teary eyes. “i’m sorry, y/n. i’m really sorry.” he keeps on apologizing to you, while you just smile at him and wipe the tears in his eyes.

“it's alright, satoru. i already forgave you a long time ago.” you said.

“i can't sign it. i don't want to sign that anymore.” he confessed. a small form made its way to your temple” “but this is for both of us. don't you want to have a brand new start? how can we thrive when we both have shackles on our feet?”

“i-i thought everything was easy. i thought i could l-let you go that easily. but i was wrong. it's so hard to let go of us, y/n. and as much as i would like to do what i meant to do, it's just so hard to see us disappear from our now individual lives.” satoru buries his face on your stomach. your hands immediately made its way towards his hair as tears are threatening you once again.

“it's hard to let you go too, satoru. but it would be harder to see you suffer more when you're here with me.” it was getting late and satoru was still amidst the crisis, but you are determined to get him out of there.

“look at me, toru.” you cupped his cheeks and made him look at you. “you’ve still got a whole world to see. so don't you ever get worried about me because i’ll be more happy to see you free without any worries.

“go live a life that you weren't able to do when we were still kids. do what you always wanted to do.”

“and just so you know, i will always love you and you will always have a special place in my home.” you put his hand to your left chest where your heart lies. “here, satoru. you'll always be here.”

satoru pulled you into the tightest hug since it was literally the last and you wouldn't mind. reciprocating the hug, you finally smiled whole-heartedly and it even reached your eyes.

“whatever happens, i love you, y/n. i love you more than anything. i have loved you since the first time i saw you. and i will always love you even if this would be the last time i would see you.” throughout the six years that you two had been together, from boyfriend-girfriend relationship until to marriage—this was the very first time he declared his love to you with so much intensity.

your eyes nearly gave up on how long you've been trying to hold your tears. but you still swore that night that you'll never shed a tear unless satoru is out of the scene because you knew how much effect your crying causes him.

to hide your emotions, you pull him closer and share the last and passionate kiss as two persons who share the same surname are binded by the law. both of you could feel the emotions begin to overflow as things become more sensitive.

you were the first one to pull away as satoru was still crying. cradling his cheeks, you connected your foreheads together and said again, “let's not make higuruma wait any further.”

satoru knew it was time, time for him to finally sign the divorce paper that he's been planning for a month now.

he expected this one too just like you, so it shouldn't hurt, but why is his heart still aching? with a final stroke of his signature, satoru felt so empty. his soul feels like missing and something was taken away from him.

both have done it—a trial away and the marriage will no longer be valid. there would be no mr. and mrs. gojo now because both will live differently.

grabbing the paper with your shaky hands, you turn around at satoru and give him the final hug with a final kiss. “good luck on your new life, satoru. i’ll always cheer for you and support you until the end.”

“thank you so much, y/n. i really mean it.”

and with that, you and satoru shared the same sad smile you could utter at that moment. sure, this night will end bittersweet, but tomorrow is a brand new start.

you watched satoru walk solemnly towards the car. he looked like a ghost wandering around the vicinity without any will to search for the true paradise for him to rest. it really broke your heart that this is the end for both of you.

and with now fully signatured divorce paper on his hands, satoru felt that each step he took, he felt like fainting on the spot because of how devastating he felt.

but you cannot undo everything now. satoru had officially become your sweet memory and a stranger on the street at the same time. just as he was about to go inside the car, you called out for his name one last time.

your ex-husband looked at you with tired, red, and puffy eyes. you let yourself give the bestest smile you could offer at this moment. a smile entitled one last smile before saying a goodbye.

"if we found each other in another world, let me be your wife again!"

satoru's eyes glisten with tears once more. nevertheless, he also offers you the bestest smile he could manage. he is now letting his broken heart go out of your grasp. forcing himself to swallow and accept that in this lifetime, you are no longer his.

but if the two of you would be reborn or somewhere in the multiverse, he would pray that the two of you got the life you onced failed to build, and that was something he would wish for forever.

"of course! and i will choose you this time. we would make a family that we once dreamt of, and i will give you the honor to name our children." satoru yelled back, making your smile widen.

you could finally rest knowing that there would be a lifetime waiting for both of you somewhere in the future. and this time, you are not being delusional because you know it'll be going to happen and you'll make it happen.

"emi!"

"what?" satoru halted his steps to focus his attention on you.

"i want our first born daughter to be named emi." you've actually dreamed of having a child with him, in that dream, her name is emi. it was like a sign to you, so when you woke up, you immediately searched its meaning and found out that emi means blessed.

you are blessed.

both of you definitely feel blessed to have each other.

that being said, you have kept that name for a while now. sooner, you wished that name would be used with satoru's surname entangled to it.

because in this life, it was unfortunate not to use the name emi. you only want to use that name with him and only him. for you lived with him, loved him, and dreamed with him.

but patience is a virtue. you are willing to wait for that dream, for him. time is not a problem to you because you'd be fully patient just for him.

"have a safe journey, gojo satoru. i will be waiting for you in our next lives." you gently bow your head to send your wish for his safety.

with that, satoru enters the car without looking at you anymore. he was afraid that if he looked at you, he might find himself running back into your loving arms again.

"we'll be going now, y/n." higuruma rolled the window and waved a farewell to you.

you just nod at him while you watch the car slowly disappear from your eyesight. sad but true, you will be waking up all alone from now on 'till your thirties.

no more satoru to wake you up with cuddles. no more satoru who would make corny jokes randomly. no more satoru to who would always remind you that you have a husband. just no more satoru gojo—

drip…

a tear, followed by another, and another until it just flows uncontrollably. you are finally a crying-mess. you're letting yourself cry and let your emotions out by a shout of pain escaping out from your lips.

it was all over.

satoru chooses his life over you, and you choose satoru over your life. with your knees planted on the pavement, your hand travels towards your mouth to cover your loud painful sobs.

all of the tears that you had been keeping since this morning, finally had their freedom to flow at your cheeks along with anguish scream that came out of your broken heart.

you finally lost this time.

[a special chapter will be posted soon, so stay tuned and just comment if you want to be added on the taglist for this one — ©luvvixu2024]

#gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo satoru x you #gojo x reader #anime #fanfic #jujutsu kaisen #jjk satoru #luvvixu #gojo satoru angst #satoru angst #angst #jjk angst #jjk gojo

95 notes · View notes

ixveee · 24 hours

Text

a summer in december - grayson hawthorne x reader

wc: 734

summary: love we'll just remember, you didn't think you'd see grayson hawthorne ever again after your fling over winter break, but summer is full of surprises

pairings: grayson hawthorne x fem!reader

warnings: first time writing x reader, probably not that good, use of yn (im sorry I couldn't avoid it), very very light swearing (like once), angsty(ish), no happy ending

tag list: no one yet! lmk if you wanna be tagged in the future!!

You loved the summer. You loved the beach, swimming, vacations, and just having a break. You turned so you could get a tan on your back. You also loved laying on the sand. The beach was quiet, the waves serene and the air clean. It was so relaxing. The sun was hot, but the sea breeze made it bearable. You could feel the heat on your back. You lay with your head down, closing your eyes to enjoy the feeling of the summer sun. Humming contently, you feel like you could take a nap.

Until some loud-ass family decided to come and ruin the day.

You look up, now annoyed. You see a girl with dark brown hair, chasing after a boy with lighter brown hair and green eyes. Another couple follows them. A man wearing a cowboy hat (why a cowboy hat at the beach???) and a girl with blue hair, who’s laughing. Next was an extremely tall boy carrying a girl with black hair on his shoulders. You softened a bit and were quite frankly jealous of the close group. You’d only had one relationship before, a fling over winter break with-

Grayson Hawthorne.

There’s no way it’s him. It’s impossible. You hadn’t seen him since last winter. You took off your sunglasses, thinking the lighting was playing tricks on you but no, this was Grayson in the flesh. You hated the way butterflies erupted in your stomach looking at him. The way you almost sighed in relief at the sight of no one with him. But you especially hated how he just cast you aside like you were a game.

You woke up to Grayson already getting dressed, buttoning up his white-collared shirt and tugging on his pants again. “Gray?” you murmur, still groggy. He looks at you, a tight-lipped smile on his face. “Sorry, I have to go.” You watch, confused, as he puts on his suit jacket. “Go? Go where?” He had been staying in your hotel room at the ski lodge the whole time you were there together. “I have to go.” You understood now but you wished you didn’t. He was leaving. For good. It didn’t even seem like he cared. “So that’s it?” you ask angrily. “You’re just leaving?” Grayson looks regretful, but he doesn’t deny it. “I’m sorry, but nothing good would come of us together. I did enjoy our time together, make no mistake.”

You were heartbroken. How could he? You thought you actually had something. A bond. A connection. You guess he didn’t feel the same. You huffed, laying back down. “Go, then.” You dismiss him with a wave of your hand. Based on his expression, he’s not used to being dismissed. “Leave. But if you do, I never want to see you again.”

That was the last time you ever saw Grayson. Well, until today. Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed you yet. You lay back down, trying to ignore the knot in your stomach.

Suddenly, you feel something hit you–a volleyball. You sigh, sitting up to look who it belongs to.

You’ve never regretted anything more.

Grayson was walking towards you, looking perfect as ever. You hated him a little more for it. That was why the sight of him made you crazy, right? Because you hated him…

He reaches for the ball at the same time as you because of course he did. Your fingers brush and he looks at you. “y/n?” he asks, softly. Your breath hitches at the sound of his voice. You debate denying it, but you know he recognizes you now and wouldn’t believe it. “Yes,” you reply, coolly. “Hello, Grayson.” He stares at you in disbelief for a moment before a voice–the boy with the brown hair–calls for him. “You good, Gray?”

“Yes, one second,” he calls back.

“You should go back to your family,” you respond, tone indifferent. Grayson nods slowly and picks up the ball. He stands up and looks at you for a moment as if waiting for you to ask him to stay. Well, that wasn’t happening. You lay down again, putting on your sunglasses and lounging on your back with your arms under your head. You watch Grayson through your peripheral vision as he jogs back to his family, and you feel the knot in your stomach tighten. Because of course Grayson Hawthorne still affected you.

And you hated it.

Right?

a/n: woo woo! my first x reader fic!! lowk might make it a series if people like it....

requests are open! if i get enough i'll make a writing sideblog!

#⪩⪨﹒✎ venus writes #the inheritance games #grayson hawthorne #grayson davenport hawthorne #grayson hawthorne x reader #jameson hawthorne #avery kylie grambs #xander hawthorne #nash hawthorne #libby grambs #maxine liu #the brothers hawthorne #the hawthorne legacy #the final gambit

55 notes · View notes

n3ptoonz · 2 days

Text

'Hot Springs'

wlw fic on the first day of pride month?! hold your applause 😎😎

Pairing: Falin Touden/Marcille Donato

Fandom: Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon

Warnings/tags: Smut; Explicit, PWP, underwater activities, cunnilingus, Falin can hold her breath for a long time, Falin isn't a monster yet but she got that DOG in her, finger riding, confessions, multiple orgasms, finger sucking- DAMN you get the idea. might be typos

Word count: 1.2k

Explicit content under the cut

"I'm so glad you're back with us! I was afraid we would never see you again." Marcille said, nearly clung to Falin's side. The water was nice and warm, and they both knew they could use a relaxing evening away from the chaos in the dungeon. Falin smiled and put her hand over Marcille's when she noticed she was more pale than usual.

"Marcille? You're paler than I am..." she said.

Marcille sat up straight and scratched the back of her head, chuckling sheepishly, "Yeah...I used up a lot of my mana in the last hour alone..."

Falin just blinked and leaned closer to inspect her face. She noticed how a faint tint of red painted her cheeks after being startled. Before Marcille could finish her sentence, Falin grabbed her hand gently to give her some of her mana.

"Relax." she whispered. "You are probably drained from saving me, let me help you." Her voice was still so soft and welcoming as it always was, but her tone was slightly more demanding than usual, and Marcille was starting to like it.

"What do you me- Falin!" Marcille exclaimed, watching Falin submerge herself under the warm water. After letting go of her hand, Marcille then gasped at the feeling of Falin's soft hands grabbing her thighs. On one hand she was worried about Falin not being able to breathe...but as soon as her lips and the pad of her tongue met her folds, her mind surely went blank.

Marcille's legs instinctively started to close when Falin spread her legs further and delved into her like she hadn't eaten in weeks (I mean technically-). Marcille had to cover her own mouth so she wouldn't be heard on the other side of the wall where the guys were bathing.

Who knew Falin had this in her? The strangely skilled woman seemed to have been on a mission the way she swirled her tongue and let her nose brush against the sensitive nub that drove Marcille mad.

Not having much sexual experience, she naturally would start to reach her climax fast. The way Falin lapped at her was too much to bear, but she also still didn't want Falin to be underwater for much longer. Her eyes shut tightly as the pit of her stomach tightened and that unraveling coil had finally snapped. While she came, Falin tried her best to take it all in so it didn't spread far out into the bath water...although it may be a little late for that!

Above the surface all that could be heard was the faint echoes of Marcille's muffled whines and huffs as she trembled in her post-orgasm glow. As she attempted to calm herself Falin came back up with the same small smile on her face. She leaned closer to Marcille again as she saw some of her mana return around her.

"That should replenish some of your strength." she said so casually like she couldn't feel Marcille's legs shaking under her palms. Marcille managed to catch her breath and let her eyes slowly open to the sight of Falin up close and personal, yet still not invading her space.

"I...When the hell did you learn to do that?!" she asked, seemingly back to normal.

Falin tapped her chin in genuine thought, "Err...I was always able to hold my breath for a long time-"

"That's not what I meant- Hey!" she said as she felt Falin's hands pull her into her lap. "...You have got to stop surprising me like that..." she added, but soon quieted as Falin entered one finger inside her. She used her other hand to caress her cheek and brush her hair behind her ear.

"You still seem stressed, Marcille. I wanna help," she said softly this time. "Yes...you are clenching onto my finger-"

"Maybe because it's inside of me!" Marcille blurted out, but her feigned irritation faltered as soon as she realized she was subconsciously riding Falin's fingers. Marcille buried her blushing face into the crook of the other's neck, wrapping her arms around her as her goosebumps became more apparent. She slowly lifted herself again and shyly whispered, "...Could you add another one...?" in reference to another finger. Falin's hands were always so soft and delicate, and Marcille could never forget about that fact.

"Of course," Falin whispered. She was now two fingers deep inside of the shy elf clinging onto her shoulders and trying her best to keep her composure while she rode her fingers. Strangely enough, Marcille's mana was rejuvenating quickly this way. She might have to start purposely using up her energy more often if this is how she can get it back in due time. She became less and less worried about Falin using hers up by this point, she was feeling way too good.

"Mm...please-" she softly moaned desperately. Falin put her free hand on Marcille's hip for more balance since it was clear she was getting lost in the moment.

"Would you like a third finger?" she asked, caressing her cold yet warm wet skin. She watched as Marcille shyly nodded as she kept going; her eyes shut tight and her whines getting louder.

The sound of the water splashing against their skin was beginning to drown out from the pants, hums, and moans filling the room. The steam was no longer there. Only the heat emitting from their skin. The tips of Marcille's ears began turning bright red as Falin added one more finger. She lifted the hand placed on her hip to her freshly washed hair, stroking it to soothe Marcille as she shamelessly regenerated her energy back.

As her soft cries crescendoed, she had no other choice but to muffle herself by biting down onto Falin's shoulder. It wasn't too hard, but it wasn't too soft either.

It was perfect.

Falin let out a soft hiss at this sensation and decided to lift her thumb to rub slow circles around the small nub that was sure to send Marcille off the edge. She let tears flow from her eyes as she reached climax, and Falin didn't intend on stopping her movements.

"Let it out, pretty girl~" Falin mumbled into her ear, and as Marcille rode out her high, she quickly unlatched her teeth from Falin's shoulder and kissed her. She held her face like she could disappear again right here right now. Every groan and cry that escaped her lips was taken in by Falin's, and she didn't mind one bit.

She then backed away and slowly brought her movements to a halt, resting her forehead on the other's. Falin gently removed her fingers and looked at the slick left behind in awe, which prompted Marcille to take the three fingers into her mouth and suck off the extra with a tired, yet cheeky smile.

She finally collapsed into Falin's arms. She just laid her face on top of hers with a soft chuckle and a sigh of content, taking a mini note of how her breasts comfortably rested atop hers.

"I really like you, Falin." she confessed rather quietly. Loud enough for her to hear. Falin glided her hands down her back before pulling her closer, letting the slightly cold water still its movements following hers. She smiled as she nuzzled against the elf's spent form--luckily she would be able to bounce back quickly with her new mana wink wink.

"I really like you too, Marcille."

#n3ptoonz #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #farcille #falin touden #falin dungeon meshi #marcille donato #marcille dungeon meshi #falin x marcille #marcille dunmeshi #wlw #gay as fuck

30 notes · View notes

kabie-whump · 1 day

Text

✧･ﾟ Ripe, About to Fall - Part 11 ✧･ﾟ

This is an 18+ slowish burn pet-whump story with added romance.

Title from 'Liquid Smooth' by Mitski

Series First | Previous Summary: Ventis still isn't talking, and Athos takes advantage of it. Theodore visits Athos and has a chat with Ventis. Content: non-con oral onscreen, beating mentions, degradation, trauma-induced muteness?, character death mention, (let me know if I missed a tag I'm brain soup right now)

Onthyes does not belong to me. He was created by my wonderful gf @sapphicccici and I have kidnapped him.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Ventis’s whole body ached as he sat at his master’s feet. It’s been at least two years since he was last beaten as badly as he was yesterday, but still not a word escaped his lips.

He didn’t really know why he wasn’t talking. He’d like to believe it to be a brave act of rebellion, except he really did want to give in. He didn’t like being beaten up, didn’t like the threat in Athos’s eyes every time he responded to a question with a nod or shake of his head. Ventis was a lot of things, but he wouldn’t consider himself to be brave.

But the words just wouldn’t leave his lips, no matter how desperately he tried to convince them to.

At least he didn’t have to wear such revealing clothing today, since Athos wanted to keep the worst of the bruises hidden.

“He really is beautiful, Mr. Landleigh. You’re a lucky man.”

Ventis blinked himself out of his thoughts, glancing up at the source of the words. Dwen. One of Athos’s newest business partners - a man probably only ten years older than Ventis. He stood out in a room otherwise filled with people old enough to be Ventis’s parents or even grandparents. Dwen was a hungry young man in more ways than one, and he never kept his eyes to himself.

“Indeed,” Athos hummed, reaching down to pat Venits’s head. Ventis couldn’t help but lean into the touch, finding comfort in the gentleness despite its source. “He requires a fair amount of training and upkeep, but he’s certainly worth the trouble.”

“I’ve been considering getting a pet of my own. You do nothing but rave about yours. But I fear it would be challenging to find one that lives up to him.”

Ventis looks up at Athos, watching a smirk cross the man’s face. The look that means he’s up to something, and Ventis isn’t going to like it.

Athos ran his fingertips along Ventis’s cheek lovingly. “Isn’t that sweet, treasure? My friend here envies your rare beauty. Do you want to give him a taste of what it’s like to own you?”

Ventis swallowed hard, shaking his head. He knew exactly what Athos meant. Athos had let his friends use him before, but it was a rare occurrence and only when he was particularly upset with him.

“Hm. I don’t hear a ‘no’.” Athos said with a grin. “That’s very generous of you, darling.” He stood, grabbing Ventis by a horn and dragging him over to kneel in front of Dwen.

Dwen smiled down at Ventis, his hands moving to his belt.

Ventis’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach.

“I know you haven’t been feeling well recently,” Athos said, leaning down to speak softly into Ventis’s ear. “If you aren’t up for this, just tell me. I can make it all stop.”

Ventis shook his head again, pleading with his eyes.

Athos’s lips were still set in a smile, but his eyes shone with disappointment. “Oh, you don’t want to stop? Alright then. He’s all yours, Dwen.”

Ventis steeled himself as Athos returned to his seat and struck up a casual conversation with his other partners. He could deal with this. He had plenty of experience. It wouldn’t kill him, and his veins were thumming with Nightspill, helpfully numbing the sharper of his emotions.

I’m fine. I can handle this.

Dwen’s hand found Ventis’s hair, guiding him in closer until his lips touched hot flesh.

Just tune it out.

Ventis closed his eyes, praying that Dwen would at least be gentle. Not that anyone ever was. His training took over and he opened his mouth. His fangs dug into the scarred-over spots on the inside of his lips. Better they pierce his own skin than the skin of his master, and the taste of blood wasn’t too bad once he got used to it.

Ugh. He needs to bathe.

Ventis focused on shutting down his need to breathe. He wouldn’t (couldn’t) choke, thanks to his elemental ancestry. That didn’t stop his throat from burning at the slight stretch. He clenched his fists in his lap.

Dwen let out a shaky groan, his hands grabbing for his horns to pull him even closer. “He’s… cold,” Dwen said with a chuckle. “Even on the inside. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“An air genasi quirk,” Athos quipped. “Not every man’s cup of tea, but I find it quite enjoyable. If it’s too bothersome I have a fix for that.”

Ventis couldn’t help but whimper at the thought. The ‘fix’ in question involved him chugging scalding hot water. He hadn’t been able to swallow without pain for a week after the last time.

“It’s alright. He’s plenty tight, so I don’t mind it.”

Thank the gods.

Luckily, Dwen didn’t last long. The men Athos lended him to rarely did. As awful as his situation was, Ventis found himself somewhat prideful of his skill in this area. He couldn’t step outside on his own, but at least he could deliver a world-shattering orgasm in mere minutes when he needed to.

He returned to his place in front of Athos, subtly stretching his sore knees as a nearby servant rushed over to fix his hair and wipe his face clean and polish the fingerprints off of his horns. Ventis’s tongue ran over the twin spots inside his upper lip where his fangs had inevitably pierced the skin. The blood masked Dwen’s taste well. Still, he was grateful when Athos offered him a sip of wine.

The guests left soon after, leaving Ventis and Athos alone. Ventis looked up at his master, unable to stop himself from glaring at the man.

“I asked you if you wanted it,” Athos said with a shrug. “You didn’t say no.”

The two spent the next couple of hours outside in the garden, in a sitting area under the shade of a tree. Ventis allowed himself to enjoy it - the taste of fresh fruit on his tongue, the sounds of wind rustling leaves and soft flutter of Athos turning the pages of his book, the scent of roses. Seated at his master’s feat like always, Ventis rested his head against his thigh and closed his eyes, clinging to the sliver of peace.

Ventis heard a servant appear and have a short conversation with Athos, but he didn’t care to decipher the words. The servant left and Ventis started to drift off, lulled towards sleep by Athos’s fingers in his hair.

Then, “Ah, the young Lord Riinturuth returns!”

Ventis sat up straight with a jolt, his eyes snapping open. There, escorted by the butler, was his younger brother, Theodore. Ventis squinted at him, curious about why he had returned after that awful dinner, but Theodore made a point of not even glancing in his direction. His eyes were on Athos alone.

“Come, sit down! What brings you back to my humble manor, my Lord?”

Anyone else would find Athos’s voice nothing aside from welcoming, but Ventis knew better. He knew that edge of caution hiding under his words.

Theodore sat in a plush chair and the butler poured him a glass of wine. “Please, just call me Theodore, Mr. Landleigh. There is no need for formalities with me. I come to you today as little more than a student.”

Ventis resisted the urge to snort. Theodore was never the ‘student’ type. He’d always been more interested in hunting and fighting and honing his magic.

“Oh? You intrigue me, Theodore. Do go on.”

“Well, I have a request for you. You are an influential person in this city, which is why my father wanted us to have dinner together at the start of my stay here. But the truth is, he looks down upon those who find their power through economic pursuits. To him, business is too fickle of a thing to rest your legacy on.”

Athos hummed, displeased.

“But I could not help but respect you, sir,” Theodore pressed on. “Being born into power is one thing, but having the ability to take it for yourself? To me, that is much more impressive. My time in Nimbria was only meant for me to study leadership with the Venturas, but I believe it would benefit me to learn from you as well. If you will have me, I would love to observe your business practices from time to time. And in return I can promise that your business will always have a friend in my kingdom’s ports.”

Athos considered Theodore with a raised brow. “And you are certain that this proposition has nothing to do with your long lost brother here?” Athos’s hand rested atop Ventis’s head.

Theodore’s eyes flicked to Ventis for a second before he fixed his gaze on Athos once more. “I can assure you, sir, that he means nothing to me. It is thanks to his absence from home that I was able to ascend to my position as our father’s heir. Our shared past will cause no issue.”

Athos hummed, absentmindedly stroking Ventis’s hair as he thought. “Very well. I have no children of my own, so maybe it will do me some good to have an eager young mind to shape.”

“Thank you, sir. You will not regret this.”

The two sat and chatted for a while as Ventis tried to come to terms with the fact that his brother would be coming by even more after this. Had he not been humiliated enough already?

“Ventis, go fetch more wine,” Athos said after he and Theodore had finished off what was left of the previous bottle.

Ventis stood with a short nod and walked inside.

Moments later, as he was just passing through the doorway into the servant’s corridors, a hand grabbed his arm. He gasped sharply as the fingers dug into bruises. Ventis turned, his eyes going wide when he saw his brother staring back at him.

“Jasper,” Theodore said, his voice low. “I’m here to rescue you.”

Ventis took a small step back, shaking Theodore’s hand off of his arm. Why was everyone trying to save him all of a sudden? More importantly, why would Theodore want to save him? They’ve always been rivals. Theodore said himself just earlier today that Ventis’s absence had been good for him. Ventis couldn’t believe for a second that Theodore actually cared what happened to him. His actions five years ago had proven that all too well.

How was Ventis supposed to believe that the very same person who had singlehandedly ruined his life actually wanted to help him?

Theodore definitely saw the blatant disbelief and confusion on Ventis’s face. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice even lower.

“Listen, brother. While you are still under Landleigh’s thumb, Onthyes Ventura will not train me, and that is the entire reason I am in this city in the first place. I am helping you whether you want me to or not, so I suggest you make this easy on both of us and not be so fucking stubborn for once.”

Ventis’s heart stopped.

“Onthyes is alive?”

Those were the first words he had spoken in days. They came out as a broken whisper. A tiny sliver of hope in a world that had seemed so dark for so long.

Theodore looked taken aback. “Yes, of course he is.”

“I…” Ventis sunk to the ground, squatting on his heels and threading his fingers through his hair. His breaths came with far too much difficulty and his vision blurred. “I thought he was dead.”

Suddenly, everything was different. There was hope. And Ventis didn’t know what to do with it. He choked out a sob, covering his face with both hands.

“Jas- Ventis?” He could feel Theodore getting closer and squatting down in front of him.

“How?” Ventis croaked. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“After he failed to rescue you, his guard friends knocked him out and left him there. They didn’t kill him.”

“I-If you’re lying, Theo-”

“I’m not lying. He can’t come to see you himself, obviously, so I’ve come in his place. I will get close with Landleigh, and at the first opportunity I will get you out of here. But you have to work with me. You have to trust me.”

Ventis glared at Theodore through his tears. “Trust you? After what you did to me? Are you joking?”

Annoyance flashed across Theodore’s face before he schooled his expression back into neutrality. “You’re still on about that? It was five years ago. I was fourteen. Grow up and move on.”

“Move on?” Ventis hissed. “That would be easy for you, wouldn’t it? You’re not the one who…” he trailed off, not wanting to say the word. They both knew what it was anyway, and it hung between them, unspoken.

Died.

“You came out fine in the end,” Theodore muttered. “I am not responsible for the way you decided to cope.”

Ventis glared at the wall behind Theodore. “I do not want your help.”

“You do not have a choice. Onthyes is useless to me without you.”

Theodore extended a hand down to Ventis. Ventis glared at it, then rose to his feet on his own.

“Like it or not,” Theodore continued, “I am currently your only hope of seeing him again. I can not force you to cooperate with your own rescue, but I would encourage you to think it over.”

With that he left Ventis alone, headed for the exit. Ventis took a moment to collect himself, scrubbing tears away with his sleeves, before he resumed his journey to the wine celler.

When he returned to Athos’s side with a fresh bottle the man’s eyes searched his face immediately. Ventis glanced away with hope that he wouldn’t notice his watery, red rimmed eyes.

Athos took Ventis by the chin, forcing his face up towards his own. There was a little smile on his face as he brushed his thumb across Ventis’s bottom lip.

“You look beautiful today, treasure,” Athos said gently.

“Thank you, master.”

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

I'm sorry this one took so long omg. I'm at a point in this story where I just want to skip to the recovery but I gotta get there first, so I keep writing scenes for the future because that's more exciting to me right now. Luckily, that means I'm impatient and Ventis is probably going to get out in the next chapter or two! Yay!

@scp-1296 @sapphicccici @acer-gaysimpstuff @morning-star-whump @yeetmyskeet

@sleepyiswhumping @bitchaknso @unicornbeck @wounds-seen-and-unseen @3-2-whump

@looptheloup @rainydaywhump

16 notes · View notes

ckret2 · 24 days

Text

Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed.

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched.

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #sev'ral timez #(a tag i have never used before and will probably never use again.)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

1K notes · View notes