Lucid Dreamer (2/2)
part 1
Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.
It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.
But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.
There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.
Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.
Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.
Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.
Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.
Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.
He doesn't dream.
One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.
And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.
And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.
He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.
But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.
The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.
Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.
The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.
"I'll be home in one week."
53 notes
·
View notes
Seek is figure's seeing eye lover
Sober thoughts
Tw//Drunkenness (non-violent)
Seek is dealing with some stuff. It's not an alcoholic or anything it just had a bad day.
also, don't worry about Figure intentionally squishing Seek in its fist it's kind of like a hard reboot but for gay slime. It pops the air bubbles within its lover's mass (which appear from it boiling and is very unpleasant for the entity to deal with.)
Figure also stretches Seek like play slime for fun, which feels like a back massage.
There must've been a party the night before, because it didn’t even make it out of the doorway..and that its stench was a filthy cleaver to wrenched into Figure’s sternum...
Not that figure minded that much, but It didn’t take figure very long for the flesh-laden creature to feel out where its lover had dematerialized; more of an eye-laden stain on the floor then the puddle it typical rested. It felt dusty between its fingers. “Seek?” It clicked, brushing a gnarled finger up against the puddle.
There wasn’t a response.
It trilled anxiously, its fingers brushing up against its partner’s dark surface once more as it began to repetitively brush its palm up against Seek’s mass with more friction.
“Seek? Seek are you there? Seek? SeekSeekSEEK-
A malformed hand grasped Figure’s fingers and then promptly destabilized back into its puddle seconds later.
“..Shh, I heard you the first time.”
Figure stopped moving its hand and looked down towards where its partner was speaking.
“Why didn’t you answer me then?”
The puddle, still somewhat inert as its partner gently gathered it with a hand, the goopy entity slowly emerged from the fog as its eye peeled open.
“..I have had..t-too much.. sorry darling.”
"I had an inkling you did, You smelt like our finest anyway."
"..My eyes..are still spinning.."
Figure bones cracked as it slowly made its way down to sit on the wooden floor, with a wince of its teeth it gently brushed the eye-filled glob in its hand with a tip of one of its finger.
"We were all worried about you.."
"..I think I drank myself into an alcoholic torpor last night..tell..tell everyone everything's off..tell them I'm sick or somᵉᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ.." Seek's voice rippled away into exhaustion.
Figure whined a little, it poked Seek with the tip of its sharpened claw-thumb.
"Why did you even do that yourself? You’d have to drink hundreds of gallons to get even tipsy.."
The glob didn't answer, instead, Figure could feel some small black tendrils wrap themselves between the twisted fingers of its hand.
"..Dearest, do you remember how sunlight feels on your skin?"
Figure scratched its head and trilled.
"..Warm. I remember it all back before the exits closed..I liked to make mountains in the dirt and hide beneath them to cool off."
"..It was always too damn hot out. I remember you once popping out from beneath them and scaring me too."
"I didn't even know you could shriek that high," Figured chortled, "I still can hear the sound of you scream-melting into gravel."
"...Dirt eater..I probably absorbed some on accident because of you, I felt heavier afterward."
"Never mess with my piles."
"Kfft..I also remember.. you climbing trees with those big arms of yours... you'd sniff at the leaves that grew at the top.. and..eat bees from the beehive.. in the other tree next to it."
"Did I tell you about how I ate them?"
"No.. tell me.. how?"
"I squished them with my thumb and my pointer, then, I'd dip them into the honey like chips. I liked the grubs better, they tasted nutty and very crunchy, I should've brought some salt up there."
"..Damn, that sounds like something that could've gone well with what I had last night..maybe if I dried them.."
Seek's words trailed off into oblivion.
"..Do you remember the back alley..?"
"..The one outside..?"
"Mhm.."
"I still see it when I pass by windows.."
"The real one, Seek."
"...Barely."
Figure raised its partner up close to the side of its face and lightly rubbed up against Seek’s face.
"..Do you remember our..creature..the purring one?"
“..The cat?”
"Yes.. that's what those are called?"
"It was so soft and friendly..."
"..Do you think its still there..waiting for us?"
Figure didn’t answer. It put its pressed its side of its head even deeper into the mass it had on its hand, which by now was unusually moist even for such an entity like Seek.
Figure could smell the scent of salt.
“..My Sweetness, I don’t want to die here. Not like this.”
“Do you want to leave..?” Figure trilled softly.
“...No. I know you like it here..I do too…Your library is my home..you’re my home…”
Figure could feel Seek mass begin to cascade.
“But this place, it isn’t our lovely home anymore..it’s a death trap Figure. A death trap.”
“That..thing..It twisted..f..Jeff.. It took Greed. It Took Depth…It took Silence..”
“I’m so sorry..”
“..I don’t..I don’t want to join them… I don’t want t-to die..I don’t want you, Screech, Snare, or anyone else I love to die being burned alive..!”
Seek made a sob that reverberated through its overwhelmed mass.
“Oh Figure..! I don’t-…It’s..”
Figure could feel its partner tense in its hand.
“It’s all my fault. I should’ve killed him. I should’ve killed him then and there. But I let him go sweetness. I didn’t kill him. WHY DIDN'T I KILL HIM LIKE I WAS SUPPOSED TO!-”
Figure quickly closed its hand into a fist, which caused the once bubbling, overwhelmed Slime to Involuntarily restabilize, leaving a shivering oozing mess in its wake.
“Oh..sweetness..my sweetness..I’m sorry I didn’t mean to yell..”
Figure looked down and trilled softly into its gooey fist.
“Kkhhrt..shhshhshhshh..it's okay, its okay..listen to my voice..”
Figure gently unfolded its hand and reunited its palm up against its cheek once more.
“You aren’t going to die here..if you do..apart of me will die with you forever and ever and ever and ever and none of our babies will ever, NEVER come close to it.”
“I don’t- I don’t know what I’m going to do about Jeff, I haven’t scented anything or heard anything nearby..”
Figure's words trailed off, how could it comfort someone who can feel its heartbeats, who could feel it blood pressure rise who lives in your veins and can feel the cortisol rush through its Adrenal glands? When you can't even assure itself?
“..He’ll slip up eventually..we'll kill him then..”
"..Are..are you worried..?"
"....A little...”
Figure could feel a small tendril brush close to its face. Which, given its hungover state probably left a little bit of a smear.
“Please...don’t go away..”
“..Seek, I knew how you felt when..”
Figure made a clunky noise as it felt its partner begin to melt even more.
“..I know, but please..don’t..bring it up..”
Figure shook its head and brought Seek up to its chest, even from a few inches away it could feel the exhaustion pour through Seek’s mass.
“..You..You’re drunk..come here..”
“I don’t..I don’t think..”
“I’m so..rry...”
“Just come here..”
Figure felt a tendril prod it as its partner instinctively evaporated its way into Figure’s chest and slowly make its way its way into shared consciousness as the blind entity could feel tendrils find purchase in its brain as sleepy eyes sprouted from its host’s arms.
Figure could feel the excess alcohol seep into its muscles, with a distressed whistle it curled up on the floor and wrapped its arms around its shoulders.
5 notes
·
View notes