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wambsgansshoelaces · 5 months

Note

For that prompt list number 9 with greg I think that screams him!

FIFA

Prompt: “She did it!” “No, he did!”

Gregory Hirsch x Reader

summary: a day with greg’s nephews + FIFA shenanigans

okay so I was kind of self indulgent with this one because I play fifa all the time by myself so I was like time to pretend I’m actually playing with someone! anyway I hope you all enjoy this x I lowkey love writing greg please keep requesting him. also the picture??? on my knees

let me know what you think x

p.s. for those who don’t know, FIFA is a football/soccer video game, and a red card gets a player removed from the game

Word Count: 2.600k

You sit with your head pressed into the side of his shoulder, cuddled together on top of a pile of pillows and blankets. You both face the television, Xbox controllers in hand, and you’re watching as Greg spams the slide tackle button as you both play.

“You’re supposed to be learning how to strat, not trying to kill my best player,” you mutter lightheartedly, making your player run in circles so Greg can get the ball.

“Well, based on what you’ve told me, this is one of the best strategies one can employ,” he says back, the beginnings of a laugh lilting in his voice. “I break some knees, I take the red card, and then beat you. Metaphorically, though, because I’d never hit my girlfriend.” Without tearing his gaze from the TV, he plants a kiss to the side of your head.

You know he isn’t wrong. Every FIFA online game you’d ever played in your life had ended the exact same way. Your opponent takes their most useless player, commits a heinous crime on your best one, gets the one player sent off, then beats you by one goal because they killed your goal scorer and you couldn’t score.

“I don’t think that matters, because you’ve stolen the ball from me and then scored on yourself.” You laugh loudly, watching as your team celebrates on the screen.

“Hey, come on, I thought that was where I was supposed to go!”

“You literally passed it to your own keeper then ran into the goal. Come on, Greg, try!”

He sighs, leaning his head to the side so it rests against yours. “But it’s fun like this,” he says happily, sisscor kicking one of your player's legs out from under him.

“What the fuck!” The injury blinker flashes over the player. “What, no card?”

“You mean like an ace of spades? Why would I get one of those?”

You laugh, pausing the game to take out the hurt player. “You asshole. You know what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Then why’s my center back not have legs anymore?” you ask, watching the substitution. The player’s legs are glitching in and out of existence.

“That’s not because of me,” he insists. “That’s just bad developing.” He runs around with the ball a bit, the soft clacking of the joycon strangely soothing. “How do I shoot again?”

“Press B.”

You make all of your players run in the opposite direction, clearing the way for Greg. Jankily, he runs up to the goal, and blasts the ball over the crossbar. “I asked for shoot.”

“And I told you to press B, not suffocate it.”

The timer runs out, and you’ve won. “I hate you,” he says, dropping the controller and pulling you into his arms. “This is fun. Please never actually play against me. It’d hurt getting the shit beaten out of me.” He presses a kiss into your hair.

Greg had woken up this morning to a text message saying that his little nephews were going to be dropped off at your place. They’re his sister’s twin children, and his mother was supposed to be taking care of them, but apparently now that falls on you. In the morning, he’d rolled over to face you, phone in hand.

“I don’t know how to handle kids,” he’d said. “I think I rather famously don’t know how to handle kids.”

You were a bit upset that he’d just let his mother do whatever, but that was a conversation for another day. A much deeper, more serious one. You’d reached over, brushed back his hair with your fingers, and reassured him that you’d both do fine.

You power off the Xbox from your own controller before putting it down. “It’s only a game. And it’s only because I’ve been playing for so long.”

With a final kiss to your head, he gets to his feet, wandering into the kitchen. You stay where you are on the floor, smiling to yourself. “Do kids eat cucumbers?”

You get up to follow him, curious as to what he’s doing. After washing the vegetables, he pulls a small knife from the rack and begins cutting. “They’re children, Greg. Not toothless sharks.” He’s worrying himself too much, over thinking. You turn and pull a plate from their designated cabinet and set it next to the cutting board, Greg absentmindedly dumping the newly sliced cucumber bits onto it. “Why’re you so worried?”

He lets the knife lay on the cutting board, turning to face you, instead leaning against the cabinets. “I dunno, Y/N. It’s stupid, but I don’t want anyone to be upset with me. Not even the kids, specifically, but their mom, who’ll tell my mom…”

You frown at him, moving to retrieve a packaged thing of hummus from the fridge. You figure the children would eat the cucumbers by themselves, but if they didn’t, you’re sure you could get them to enjoy the vegetable with hummus. “One, you’re a grown man.” You tear the lid off of the hummus, nabbing a cucumber slice and dipping. “If you didn’t want to, why’d you say yes?” you ask, waving around the cucumber to help emphasize your point. Before he can say anything, you continue. “Two, they’re only here for three hours. We either take them to the park and let them run themselves to exhaustion or we just turn on the TV and be the cool aunt and uncle.” You finally pop the slice into your mouth and chew. “Good hummus.”

You leave him in the kitchen, going to slide onto the couch. The boys were due in the next five minutes. Greg turns so that he can look at you, your kitchen overlooking the living room. “Are you mad?”

You’re stretched out on the couch, scrolling through your phone. “No, I’m not. Why would I be mad?”

“I just feel like you’re upset that all of this is even happening.”

“I mean, kind of. But I’m not mad at you.”

“Okay, so you are upset,” he says, distress seeping in his voice. Before your conversation can continue, and probably turn into an argument, someone’s knocking way too loudly on your door. Greg sighs, and you sit up and watch him disappear into the hall to the front door. “Hey, Aunt- oh, okay. Yeah, we can- okay, uh, can I- oh, bye,” is all you hear before the door clicks shut. There’s an awkward pause, and you can practically hear the gears in Greg’s head grinding. You know his family frustrates him. “Hey, you two. Wanna meet the special girl I told you about?”

Although you were trying to be upset with him, and you knew you’d both need to talk seriously after all of this was over, your heart swells. You get up so that you don’t come off as rude as your boyfriend gently guides the two four-year-olds into the living room. They’re both hiding themselves behind him, one peeking around him to steal a glance at you. You wave, doing your best to seem friendly.

“Hi. What’re your names?” you ask, crouching down to their level. The one peeking leaves Greg, instead scurrying over to you.

He points at himself. “My name’s Ronnie. Ryan’s hiding. Mama says he’s too shy.”

“It’s okay to be shy sometimes.” You offer Ronnie your hand, and he takes it and shakes over enthusiastically. “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

“You look like a Disney princess,” Ronnie says matter-of-factly. “Just like Uncle Greg said you would!”

You laugh, standing and throwing Greg a look. A blush is creeping up his neck, embarrassment rolling off him in waves. “Do you like cucumbers, Ronnie?”

He practically skips after you into the kitchen, and you find yourself grinning. “Yes! They’re my favorite veggie, like the song they sang in Bubble Guppies!” Ronnie isn’t tall enough to see over the counter, let alone reach, so you hand him the plate. “Always eat at the table,” he says to himself, walking carefully with the plate cupped in his hands to your breakfast table. He climbs into the chair, which looks comically large for him, and looks over at his brother.

Greg’s gotten down on one knee and is speaking quietly to the other twin. The poor boy’s face is pink, and he stares at you apprehensively. Always moving, Ronnie takes a cucumber slice, slides out of the chair, and rushes over to his brother to hand it to him.

“See, Ronnie has a snack for you,” Greg says calmly, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Ryan’s back. “Come on, buddy, what’s wrong?”

Ryan chews slowly on the cucumber, eyes still trained on you. “He doesn’t like people he doesn’t know,” Ronnie supplies loudly. “But, look, she’s nice!”

Ryan doesn’t say anything, instead raising his arms up towards Greg. Even kneeling, he’s much taller than the boy. With a sigh, he hoists Ryan into his arms and gets to his feet. Greg carries him into the living room, so you decide to stay with Ronnie, who climbs right back into the chair and scarfs down the rest of the cucumbers.

“Do you want more?” you ask, laughing. He merely shakes his head, giving you a toothy grin.

“No, thank you! I have to save space for dinner when I get home!” Before you know it, he’s scurried off again, right to his brother. He stops at the next of pillows and blankets you hadn’t bothered to clean up from earlier. He finds the Xbox controller and turns to you. “What’s this?”

You sit yourself down in the pile of fluff, beckoning for Ronnie to sit, too. “It’s so that we can play games on the TV.”

He sinks into a particularly fluffy blanket. “Can I try? Can you help me play?”

“Yeah, sure.” You boot up the Xbox, pulling open FIFA again. “Look, we can play soccer.”

“Uncle Greg, do you know how to play, too?” Ronnie asks, entranced by the graphics on screen as you choose gamemode.

“Not well,” he admits.

“How about you play for Ryan? And Y/N plays for me!”

“I think you’re rigging it for yourself, little guy,” Greg responds, laughing. He nudges Ryan gently. “How about you go get the other controller from the pretty lady for me?”

Hesitantly, Ryan nods and scurries over to you.

“Could I please have the other controller?” he asks quietly, staring right at you. You find it and press it into his hands with a smile. He climbs back onto the couch to sit with Greg.

“I’m gonna win for you, Ronnie, don’t worry. I’ll try super, super hard!” you whisper to him conspiratorially.

He dissolves into a fit of giggles, and you turn your attention to the screen to pick your team. Soon enough, you’re playing the game, tongue caught between your teeth. Greg, sticking to the only strategy he knows, makes every player he has slide tackle on yours.

“Hey, who’s the one who keeps hurting all the players?!” Ronnie asks, distressed. As soon as he asks, one of your players gets bulldozed into the ground, and the red card cut scene plays.

“She did it!” Greg says quickly, tone accusing. Ronnie turns to face you, jaw agape.

“What? No, he did it!” you exclaim, trying not to burst into laughter.

“Don’t listen to her, Ronnie, I’m the red team,” Greg insists.

“You’re the red team? You don’t even know how to pass the ball!” The player in red, currently in possession of the ball, flicks it away from the white-wearing defender, who was admittedly running the wrong direction in the first place.

Greg laughs, the damage already done.

“How could you?!” Ronnie asks.

Ryan, to your delight, lets out a giggle. “Uncle Greg’s not telling the truth! His hands aren’t doing what the red players are.”

“Eat it, Greg,” you say, finally laughing.

When the game ends, you’ve scored on him seven times, and Ronnie squeals. “I won!”

“You’re not very good, Uncle Greg,” Ryan says, coming more out of his shell every minute that passes. You decide to turn off the game, Ronnie expressing his interest in going to the nearby playground. He stumbles over himself going to put on his shoes, Ryan the opposite, calmly and deliberately tying his laces. You attempt to take Greg’s hand as you walk outside, but he pretends like he can’t see and you immediately feel it sting in your chest.

You make it to the playground, you and Greg sitting on a bench to watch his nephews play. It’s not until Ronnie and Ryan are taking turns down the slide does he say anything.

“I’m sorry. That was mean.” He scoots closer to you, actually taking your hand this time. “I’m upset and I’m taking it out on you when I shouldn’t. I’m sorry,” he repeats, looking down at you, voice sincere.

You give his hand a squeeze. “It’s okay.”

“We should probably talk later, right?” he asks meekly. You sigh, feeling bad, and lean over to kiss his cheek.

“I promise I’m not mad or upset with you or anything,” you say first, meaning it. Your thumb strokes the back of his hand absentmindedly, the way you know he likes. “But we should talk. Later,” you add, watching Ronnie run up to you with a handful of mulch, grinning widely.

The boys spend the next hour exhausting themselves, so much so that Greg has Ronnie hoisted in his arms, head buried into his shoulder, eyes fluttering shut. Ryan walks alongside you, holding your hand. As you watch Greg walk in front of you, Ronnie draped over his shoulder, asleep, you feel strangely content.

At home, you watch your boyfriend carefully lower Ronnie onto the couch, giving his stomach an affectionate rub before pulling one of the plush blankets from the floor to drape it over him. Ryan lets you hoist him onto the other side of the couch, so that his legs overlap with Ronnie’s. As Ryan gets settled, Greg runs a soothing hand through the boy’s hair. As soon as his head hits the cushion, Ryan’s asleep, and so is Ronnie.

You’ve sat on the large cloth rocking chair you and Greg had invested in a few months ago. If you’re honest, it’s one of the best purchases you’ve ever made. He comes to join you, squishing in at your side and winding an arm around you.

“I don’t know why you think you’re bad with kids,” you murmur, keeping your voice low as to not wake anyone up. Both your legs are tucked under you, Greg using one of his feet to gently rock the two of you back and forth. “It’s nice watching you with them.”

“I just get worried,” he tells you, “that they’re not getting enough from me.”

“You do more than enough,” you point out. “They obviously love you very much. You take good care of them.”

“Regardless, it’s because you bring out the best in me,” he says into your hair. “I… I still need to do better, though. I should’ve asked you before I agreed to anything.”

Your hand smooths across his stomach. “I’m really not upset or anything.”

“Still.”

“They’re cute. They’re polite. I don’t mind taking care of them.”

He presses a kiss to your scalp. "You know, one day I'll beat you at that stupid game."

"FIFA? In your dreams, Egghead."

He tilts your head up so that he has access to your lips and kisses you gently.

“I love you very much.”

“I love you more.”

#gregory hirsch #greg hirsch #gregory hirsch x reader #greg hirsch x reader #cousin greg #cousin greg x reader #succession #succession hbo #succession fic #wambsgansshoelaces #succession x reader #writing prompt #prompt request #fluff

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anxietyishere · 18 days

Text

HERE IS THE Y/N I MADE, THIS IS BASICALLY THEM IN THEIR LESS SPOOKY FORM (ILL DO THEIR MORE SPOOKY FORM EVENTUALLY WHEN IM BETTER AT DRAWING HORROR),

somes basic stuff about this y/n

•an old eldritch horror, spawned by the growing hate, sadness, and fear of humans(basically spawning from negative energy),

•does stuff that comes off as creepy without realizing its creepy or weird, such as starring at people intensely, nibbling on people(most of the time affectionately, sometimes just to see how a person will react), and crawling on the ceiling.

•prone to outbursts of aggression when put under extreme stress, or when overwhelmed.

•prone to borrowing the nightlights, blankets, and pillows from the daycare when it's not nap time, to make a nest in which they will probably take a multi-hour long nap in

•has probably tried to eat metal out of curiosity

•can purr, purrs the most when sleepy/starring at something they like

•they use all pronouns, but have a slight preference for neutral terms like they or it, cus they a lil creature:>

•extremely stealthy but doesn't realize it

•extremely curious, sometimes to a bad degree

!MORE STUFF IM ADDING NOW :D!

•autistic lil skrunkly

•will temporarily 'adopt' any kids that are sad, easily overwhelmed, or shy, and if that kid doesn't like how loud or bright the daycare is they pick the kid up by their scruff (aka their shirt), and will carry them to a less loud area of the daycare where the lights are a bit more dim,

•probably cries every time one of their favorite kiddos has to leave

•will hiss at anyone they don't like- especially if their around a kid who also doesn't like the person they don't like

•has definitely stolen some things from the lost and found if they don't get picked up after a couple of days,

•likes to give people head pats as it's the form of psychical touch, due to it being the most comfy way for them to show affection :)

•likes sweets to a mildly concerning degree (seriously, they steal all the donuts once the pizza plex closes for the night, their excuse is that they get thrown out the next day anyways because their deemed no longer fresh.)

•their face can split- but to not scare the kids they always keep their face together,

•since fazbear entertainment quite literally could not remove them from the daycare, they lied about y/n's existence by saying their a very life like animatronic so that they wouldn't get sued

•an absolute cuddle bug when given affection by people they trust, like seriously they go full loaf mode, your not getting up anytime soon

•baps things they don't like, like a cat (don't worry they make sure to be gentle :>)

•puts stickers on their friends, pink stickers = best friends, only Sun and Moon have pink stickers, purple stickers = close friends, Monty and Vivian(aka one of the staff bots), have these stickers, blue stickers = people their friends with, chica has this sticker, green stickers = acquaintances, Freddy, Vanessa, Gregory, and some of the staff bots, yellow stickers = people they don't know well enough to have an opinion on, staff bots, mechanics, and Bonnie, red stickers = people they mildly dislike, one mechanic has this sticker, and no one else.

•shockingly good at picking up and noticing how people are feeling.

•doesn't talk much, but when they do it's usually jokes, rambling about stuff they like, calling something cute(especially if it's a cool/cute outfit), and when their comforting people

•some days their more coherent, other days their sleepy and act like a big ol' cat,

•loves Halloween, will scare the teens and adults on purpose for the entirety of October

•also loves Valentines day since they like the fact they get chocolate, doesn't care much for the romance part of it though, mostly cus they don't have a partner

•big enough that it's impossible for a human to knock them over/push them, which is useful when there's an aggressive or loud parent

Hope u enjoy!! And I hope to potentially make this into a lil series, no promises tho, I don't wanna make any promises I might not keep.

#Dca au #Fnaf au #Au #Art #Digital art #Security breach au #Fnaf #dca fandom #dca community

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thekatebridgerton · 11 months

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How did all the Bridgerton ex partners all deal with their respective break up?

They dealt with it in a healthy way.

Sophie, I already told you how she's doing.

Kate had a good cry on Mary's shoulder, while Edwina offered tissues, the next day she got another dog, learned to meditate and deleted all of Anthony's pictures from her phone. She's making her best effort to move on, but has sadly sworn off dating for a while. Much to the regret of Buisness partner, Tommy Dorset who is always waiting in the wings for her

Simon, acted like nothing happened, went back to work, boxing and eating in expensive restaurants with his friends. He still misses Daphne a lot and sleeps hugging her pillow

Penelope, grieved her relationship while she was still in her relationship, so post breakup she's just pretty much learning to live again, She's been working on her novel, joined the gym and updated her wardrobe to fit the image of 'Aristocrat' magazine Editor in Chief. Genevieve and Eloise have been her main support trough all this. And she couldn't ask for better support system

Phillip decided to give his full attention to renovating his greenhouse and homeschooling Oliver and Amanda. It helps him cope with Eloise leaving. If he just keeps his mind on his kids and his house. But he's like a sad puppy who listens to angry von Jovi. Oliver and Amanda can't take him seriously when he's being so dramatic broody and they are getting tired of the excessive paternal smothering

Michael deals with his breakup by traveling like crazy, he at least knows he'll eventually have to stop running away from his horny guilt and Grovel at Francesca's feet. But he's not there yet. Funny thing about Michael is that Francesca also did not breakup with his mom. So he also gets well meaning updates on her life from his own mom, not just Violet.

After his breakup with Hy,Gareth actually has made time to visit the on campus student therapist who suggested he joined the university basketball team and the College mentors for kids club. So Between talking to the therapist, making sure he remains at the top of the class, mentoring underprivileged kids and training for games. Gareth is actually growing out of his pain and coping in a healthy way

Lucy just coped by leaning a lot on Ricky Haselby, her gay best friend. And Haselby is the kind of guy who has lots of money and solves problems with daddy's influence. So his solution everytime Lucy starts mopping and missing Gregory is to let her cry and buy her stuff on Amazon. Still, as someone who has been ignored by her family all her life, Lucy feels oddly comforted by how hard Haselby tries to be there for her. So she's trying her best to get over the breakup one day at a time. Because Mostly she's been giving herself time to heal.

And that's the tea 😺

#bridgerton #exes to lovers au #polin #kanthony #philoise

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cdyssey · 1 year

Text

Heavenly Moments

Summary: Unable to sleep at the Franklin Institute, Barbara searches for Melissa. [2.22 Spoilers]

CW: Emotional Infidelity; Alcohol Mention

AO3 Link

—

Barbara startles awake around two that morning, having nightmared about candy colored galaxies and the aliens who populate them. Nasty, little green creatures chased her around the moon at some point, jabbering away in some unknown tongue.

Children were screaming.

Ava was trying to get phone reception in the vacuum of space, apparently hellbent on calling an Uber.

(“Nuh-uh, I ain’t gonna get Tusken Raided by those green dudes. Not today!”)

And Melissa was also there, as sturdy as ever, wielding her pink-tipped baseball bat like a pro, and reassuring her, in that warm, husky voice that Barbara knew and loved so well, “Don’t worry, hon. Me and Edith Houghton have got ya.”

And in the blurry edges of that dream, in the fantasy and the strangeness and the utter unreality of it all, her very best friend in the entire world grabbed her hand, their ten fingers interlinking, and it was somehow the scariest moment of them all.

It was the only one that felt plausible.

That touch.

Her hand.

Their mutual and perfect accord.

Barbara knobs her C-PAP machine off rather violently and just as forcefully hoists the restrictive mask over her head, breathing hard as she reorients herself.

In and out.

She’s at the Franklin Institute for the overnight field trip.

It was just a bad dream—no doubt engendered and provoked by Ava’s crackpot conspiracies that she’s been forced to listen to all evening.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She is safe.

She is married.

(These variables have always been one and the same to her.)

In and out, inhale, exhale.

The air is mercifully cold—she’s right beneath a vent—and yet, her insides continue to seethe so hotly. Her stomach. Her cheeks. Her tightened chest. She unconsciously twists the elegant band on her fourth finger and decides that what she really needs to do is go splash her face with some cold water.

That’ll make her feel better.

(She clenches and unclenches her hand once, a vain attempt at exorcising its unsummoned ghost.)

Quiet and careful, every movement nothing less than deliberate, the kindergarten teacher apprehends her phone from where it had been nestled beneath her pillow, slips from under her blankets, and straightens up into the coolly lit room, using the conveniently placed trunk next to her for support. Her bones ache. Sleeping on the floor is going to probably end up being murder on her back, but standing at least helps. Moving around is even better.

And so she tiptoes through the neon twilight—through the electric blues and the pulsing purples—and between the curled up forms of her precious children, glancing at their faces to ensure that they’re actually sleeping, sometimes bending down to adjust their blankets. When she’s satisfied that her students are alright—notifying a night security guard to keep an eye on them while she’s away—she finally passes into the big room where the other classes have bunkered down for the night.

It’s darker in here and certainly much louder, humming with snores and heavy breathing, all of it a vibrating symphony that echoes off the tall ceiling. Barbara smiles fondly as she picks out familiar faces in the crowd, even as she’s eager to light upon just one in particular. But in the meantime, there’s Ava in a glittering sleep mask, her mouth wrenched open mid-snore; Jacob with one bony leg out of the covers; sweet Janine folded in on herself like a child; and Gregory with his hands beneath his head, long elbows extended.

But scan the place though she does, combing it over intently, there’s no telltale mass of auburn hair.

There is no Melissa Schemmenti.

In fact, there’s a gaping absence where she absolutely should be.

Barbara stops short, her breath hitching.

Last she had seen, the second grade teacher had been in the middle of all her students, homely in an Eagles hoodie, striking even without her bold mascara, but her sleeping bag is empty now. And yet, Edith Houghton is still there, a watchful guard dog at the head of the younger woman's pillow.

That fact alone vaguely alarms her. She knows just from years and years of having been Melissa’s stalwart companion that she doesn’t go anywhere without her baseball bat at night anymore—paranoid of possible intruders, hypervigilant even when it is more than permissible to be vulnerable.

She once admitted to Barbara at a PECSA conference—maybe four, nearly five years ago now—that it was a habit that had only started in earnest after Joseph had left. They were in their shared hotel room, winding down for the evening, tequila-tipsy and loose-lipped, exchanging secrets like they were pieces of candy.

Wonderful to chew upon.

“I guess I felt safe when he had his arms around me,” she had shrugged, not quite looking at Barbara as she squirmed a little beneath her sheets. Edith Houghton was the woman of a baseball bat who divided them, propped against the nightstand between their beds, and Barbara had felt her presence keenly.

So she had asked about her—it—and the ensuing answer landed in her stomach like a blow.

It devastated her, simply ruined her, to know that her closest friend was so lonely and scared at night.

“Havin’ someone there… even if it was just that old bastard—that made a difference to me, y’know?”

“I know,” she croaked softly and suddenly yearned to not be where she was at—merely seven feet and some change away from Melissa Schemmenti, so alone in her own queen-sized bed. She wanted to wrap herself around her friend’s curving form. She wanted to provide that essential kindness for her, wanted to make her feel safe.

It was almost a maternal impulse, and yet, it really wasn’t.

(That was the lie she told to rationalize herself, to justify her keenest and innermost desires.)

“It’s dumb, isn’t it?” Melissa laughed hoarsely, the sound throttled.

So broken.

“Not at all,” Barbara had returned—perhaps a little more fiercely than the moment required. “You want to be protected, sweetheart. That’s only the most natural feeling in the world.”

And so, she stares at the abandoned baseball bat uncomfortably, knowing what it means, well-aware of the totemic abstraction it has become.

It’s insurance for a woman who doesn’t feel like she has any at all.

“Barbara.”

She looks up hastily at the sound of her whispered name, proffered across the rustling dark. Gregory is sitting up in his sleeping bag, and there’s a tension in his wiry frame that lets her know that he hasn’t been asleep this entire time.

“She went that way,” he says, pointing in the direction of an archway that leads to the institute’s space exhibit.

Barbara supposes she should be concerned that the young man immediately intuited what—or rather whom—she is after... in fact, she should probably be terrified that her dearest secret has possibly been sussed out—her irrational heart understood—but in the midst of such a long night, all of her bones so desperate and weary, she can only find it in herself to be grateful.

Besides, if there's anyone at Abbott Elementary who gets wanting someone they probably shouldn't, it has to be Mr. Eddie.

She nods once and smiles at him sadly.

“Thank you,” she mouths silently, and he gives her a thumbs up before resuming his former position, statue still.

As she heels across the room, skirting around the mass of sleeping bodies, she wonders if he has a lot on his mind too. Maybe she’ll ask him tomorrow. Meddle a little. Intervene. It’s how that she shows that she cares.

She proceeds through the arch and down a narrow corridor, only marginally aware that she shouldn’t be wandering through a museum at night, grown adult that she is, though frankly a little too absorbed by her mission to properly care. A younger, more sanctimonious version of her would have cared, of course—the her that she was before she had known Melissa to be exact.

She had been a more righteous woman then—absolutely, beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt—but she had also been a profoundly sadder one too.

The hall eventually opens up into a stunning spectacle, one that Barbara had eagerly taken her children through just hours earlier. The space exhibit has well-earned its name, a cavernous room with hundred thousands of stars projected all over its concave walls. These artificial lights twinkle and slowly swan through a sea of black, cycling in an endless rotation. A spray of asteroids occasionally spirals in the digital aether. Neon lights suspended on iron rigs above bathe the entire chamber in alternating blues, purples, and magentas, everything lush with magical color.

Strewn throughout the room are nine gigantic models of the eight main planets in the solar system, as well as one of the sun, each encircled by steel railing, each carefully revolving on its mechanical axis. She hadn’t attempted to explain the effects of gravitational pull to her five-year olds, knowing it was far from the time; it was more than enough to watch their round faces light up as they grappled with the fact—possibly for the first time in their entire lives—that the universe is so much bigger than their home and school.

It is infinite.

And therefore extraordinary.

In the midst of all this beauty, this vast wonder and this precise, scientific joy, Barbara finally spots what she had been looking for—that telltale spray of red hair—in the very center of the room, illuminated, quite fittingly, by the sun. Melissa is leaning against the railing surrounding that colossal star, her ankles crossed, one hand rubbing the skin just above her right hip.

“Couldn’t sleep?” She rumbles somewhat loudly in a vain attempt to not startle her.

But Melissa still jumps anyway, swearing violently.

“Jesus, Barb,” she shakes her head as she turns around. “How d’you manage to always sneak up on me like that?”

“I’m just stealthy, I suppose,” she teases, closing the untenable gap between them, sidling up to the other teacher's side, where she should be, where she utterly belongs. “A veritable ninja as my children would claim.”

“Hardy har, asshole,” Melissa rolls her eyes, visibly fond.

And they both laugh then like the little girls that they most certainly aren’t. It’s delicious and lovely and just a little bit illicit, as though time has opened up and made an impossible pocket of childlike tenderness for just the two of them.

Barbara revels in the moment.

She dares to brush her shoulder against Melissa’s and imagine that it’s home.

“Nah,” her friend eventually circles back to answering her original question. She’s stopped laughing—they both have—but the crow’s feet edging Melissa’s eyes still pitter-patter in playful motion. “My hip couldn’t take much more of that floor, so I flirted with a security guard. Asked if she’d turn on this display for me for a little while.”

“Girlfriend!” Barbara lightly smacks Melissa’s arm in faux-offense. Or what she tells herself is just faux-offense anyway, firmly ignoring the fact that something in her sulks at the idea of Melissa ever flirting with a woman who isn’t herself. “Aren’t you still seeing Gary?”

This makes her frown too—this self-inflicted reminder of her friend’s total unavailability.

And besides, it’s Gary, and he’s nice enough, certainly, but in her humble and completely unbiased opinion, he doesn’t inspire much confidence as a potential life partner for Melissa.

Nice enough is fine for a little while, a good palate cleanser after a bad meal, but it’s not any foundation to build a stable future upon.

“What?” Melissa snorts, entirely unbothered, tossing a hand through her vivid hair. “No harm, no foul, as long as I’m not crossin’ any lines I can’t come back from, right? And besides, can you deny me this view?”

She gestures happily to the nearby model of sun, golden and spectacular, spinning so perfectly on its motorized stand, but Barbara never takes her eyes away from Melissa: her shimmering hair, her light-flecked eyes, the delicate shaping of all her curves.

A view indeed.

“No, I suppose I can’t,” she murmurs, and she can hear it in her own voice—how reverent that she sounds without ever meaning to. She coughs into her hand and briefly looks away, feeling the same heat in her gut that she did upon waking up and trying to untangle herself from the phantom of Melissa’s hand.

Of course that gesture had been plausible.

Somehow, in real life, they’re always maneuvering themselves into moments where they’re just mere inches and moral compromises away.

“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Melissa asks sympathetically, nudging her arm, bringing her back. She peers upwards at Barbara through long, dark lashes. “Back troubles?”

“That,” she acknowledges with a grim smile, “and nightmares about aliens pursuing me all about the moon—likely inspired by our principal’s cockamamie shenanigans, I'm sure."

They both chuckle at this, exasperated and simultaneously fond. Barbara’s beating heart violently surfaces to her throat when Melissa unexpectedly places a hand on her lower back and begins kneading slow circles into it.

She’s apparently an expert at this.

She dips her knuckles hard in to the sensitive tissue, and the ensuing ache is absolutely glorious.

Oh, Almighty God in Heaven, it feels so good.

“You were there,” she chokes out in a constricted voice, biting her lower lip in a desperate attempt not to make some kind of noise that could be construed as inappropriate. “You had your baseball bat.”

“Was I goin’ all Rambo on those little suckers?” Comes a facetious reply that doesn’t exactly match the serious expression on the younger teacher's face, nor the way that her tongue gently flirts across the pink line of her closed lips.

Barbara swallows thickly.

“No, but you were absolutely, positively threatening to,” she responds before finally forcing herself to shrug Melissa’s intimate touch away, smiling painfully, ignoring the injury that briefly flashes in the other’s eyes.

“Sorry, sweetheart, that hurts a little too much.”

Yes, that has always been true between them.

And it's had nothing to do with a damn massage.

“No need to apologize,” Melissa returns, already recovered, or at the very least, doing a wonderful job of pretending to be so anyway, a grin languishing at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not in the business of giving you hell.”

And this has also been historically true.

Even in her dreams, Melissa has never sought to hurt her.

“Hey!” She interjects with sudden eagerness, and this is penitence, maybe. Atonement. It usually tends to be with her. “What do you say you and I go raid the vending machine in the atrium? I’ll split a Kit-Kat with you.”

“At”—Melissa squints at her Apple Watch rather skeptically—“2:30 in the morning?”

“Why not?” Barbara challenges, feeling a little reckless at the younger woman’s visible resistance. It’s a role reversal between them. Usually, it's Barbara pulling them away from hot pretzel stands and cinnamon roll displays. “It’s not like you and I will be sleeping much anyway.”

“Ha,” the second grade teacher snickers, scratching the skin below her ear. “I guess that’s true.”

“Come on then, silly,” Barbara cajoles, lightly bumping her hip against Melissa’s. “A little nighttime adventure for Mrs. Howard and Ms. Schemmenti. It’ll be fun.”

She smiles innocently, with childlike glee, and she somehow knows, from the momentous way that Melissa exhales, that she’s hooked, magnetized, caught, and completely undone. Fie the planets and all their collective moons. Whatever celestial pull exists between them is far more potent, all of their atoms longing for each other, impatient to so totally collide.

“Oh, what the hell?” She finally huffs, grinning, radiant in the starlight. “Let’s flippin’ go, Barb.”

And she fulfills the prophecy then.

That ridiculous nightmare.

Her most tantalizing dream.

Melissa grabs Barbara’s hand, their ten fingers interlinking, and drags her forward through the solar system, past Mercury and Venus, Earth and rusty Mars.

And Barbara, suspended in this heavenly moment as she is, laughing, floating above it all, frankly doesn’t remember it's her matrimonial duty to let this happiness go.

#work wives #s: abbott elementary #reginianwrites #I've missed writing :')

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noodyl-blasstal · 2 years

Note

If you're still taking prompts #18 with Taako?

Thank you very much Anon

“No, I think the spite is worth it. Yep” from Prompts for Fun and Profit which can be found by clicking here.

______________

“Just to clarify, just so chagirl is 100% up to speed with The Plan, you think Kravitz likes romance novels, but won’t admit it to you, so you’re going to become a romance novelist using the pen name ‘T. Gregory’ so you don’t get embarrassed because you don’t want people to know you read or write romance novels.” Lup gave him a pointed look, almost as if she was expecting some kind of revelation.

“Got it in one!” Taako replied. Shooting Lup some finger guns for good measure.

“But, what does that prove? How will you know if he reads it? This makes 0 sense, Ko.” Lup looked baffled, and Taako rolled his eyes, Lup usually kept up better than this.

“He loves writing letters, Lu. He writes to all his favourite authors to ‘show appreciation’ because it’s ‘good to make sure people know how much you enjoy their work’. He’s such a dork.” Taako said. This was obvious, it wasn’t like he knew Kravitz well and he knew this about him. His exasperated sigh with Kravitz’s inherent ridiculousness came out sounding a lot more fond than intended. Lup had already started teasing him about the crush he didn’t have on ‘Kravitz from the Coffee Shop’, so he powered on in the hope she wouldn’t smell weakness. “Anyway, I’ll crack out a best seller and he’ll write to me. I know his handwriting, and then I’ll have him and I can take the letter to the shop, wait until he comes in and tell him I know the truth. Lying to Taako? Absolutely not.” Taako continued. Adding a smug nod once he finished.

“Once again, Koko, just to clarify. You’re going to write a romance novel…” Lup began.

“... a bestselling romance novel.” Taako corrected.

Lup rolled her eyes and started again. “You’re going to write a bestselling romance novel out of spite, so Kravitz writes you a letter.”

“So I recognise his handwriting and catch him in a lie. What aren’t you getting Lup?” Taako was getting frustrated now. This plan was impeccable.

“And when you catch him in a lie you’re going to tell him you wrote an entire romance novel, a genre you’re also pretending you don’t enjoy, so that you could tell him you share an interest?” Lup raised her eyebrows and inclined her head forward. He still had no idea what she was getting at.

“Yeah, he’ll be so embarrassed. It’ll be adorable… I, I mean, satisfying. It’ll be satisfying to catch him out. That.” Okay, so Kravitz did look adorable when he got flustered, but Taako had eyes, it was okay to just notice things. Sometimes very handsome men who came into your shop every day and always made time to talk with you without making you feel any pressure to do so, looked a bit adorable. That was fine.

“Okay, so, Spite Book, that’s an option… but I just Googled it and romance novels are at least 50,000 words, and I distinctly remember you saying you were never writing that many words again once you finished your PhD…” Lup said. Taako grimaced, he had said that, but this was different. It wasn’t as bad if you didn’t have to research it, he could just write whatever he wanted. “But, and hear me out… I do have another suggestion about a way you could find out if you share common interests.” Lup piqued his interest with that. 50,000 words was a lot of words…

“Go on.” Taako said.

“Ask him out on an actual date, Goofus!” Lup lobbed a pillow at Taako’s head. “You’re absolutely insufferable.”

Taako ducked - he’d spent his entire life with Lup, he knew how to avoid projectiles. “Nah, I’m good with the Spite Book thanks, yeah. I’m not trying to date him!”

Lup rolled her eyes. “Sure, bro bro, sure.”

________________________________

Javitz Storm’s cape billowed dramatically behind him as he rode across the moors, Cemita Torta was waiting for him, and he knew now that encircled by Cemita’s arms was the only place he wanted to be. Javitz had spent years longing for him, but had never imagined that it was anything more than a dream. But now, now he knew that Arved was no good for him, Cemita deserved love and care, he deserved happiness, and Kravitz Javitz could give it to him.

Taako swore as he deleted the error and corrected it. This kept happening. It didn’t mean anything that the names were similar, it was just fitting for a big strong handsome dude who was coming to sweep the hero off his feet. Everyone borrowed elements of people they knew to write. It wasn’t any reflection on Kravitz.

Grabbing his mug of coffee he took another slug. It turned out writing this hadn’t been quite as terrible as his thesis on chemical engineering, but it had been more work than he’d planned. Luckily he was used to having a fairly rigid writing schedule.

The benefit of working in a coffee shop was the connections - Lucretia had said she only specialised in biography, but could put him in touch with another agent. The guy, Davenport, had been nice. He’d been enthusiastic about the story, said it would fit in well with the current boom in period romance. He asked Taako for three chapters and a formal plot summary. A few meetings later and Taako had been told to go ahead and write the thing. Davenport hadn’t minded the pen name request - in fact, he said that lots of his authors used them.

____________________________________

Davenport found him a publisher quickly. For all his bravado, Taako hadn’t necessarily expected that. He could do absolutely anything he wanted, natch, but being an author was a hard game to get into. Of course he’d be baller at writing though, it made sense.

Publication day passed without fanfare. Taako had decided there was absolutely no way that Lup wouldn’t read into the whole innocent thing with the names, so he just didn’t mention it. She’d asked a few times about the Spite Book idea, and his non-committal replies had left her thinking that he’d abandoned the plan. He didn’t lie or anything, she just drew some conclusions. Served her right for underestimating his dedication to pulling one over on Kravitz.

Taako had continued to act completely normally in the coffee shop when Kravitz came in. He was wary of doing anything which would give the game away. This wouldn’t work if Kravitz figured him out so he didn’t mention any writing or planning or meetings. Not that they talked that much or anything, not that Kravitz took an interest in his life.

Sales were slow at first. He supposed that hoping for an immediate bestseller as an unknown author was a bit of a stretch. Especially because he point blank refused to do any social media. Taako was a unique brand and it was hard to keep that candle dimmed, he didn’t want to risk giving the game away. He’d also hoped the mystery might do him some favours.

In the end it was social media that came through for him though. The publishers had sent out press packs to various reviewers. Only one produced any content, but The Book Reaper’s blog about ‘Finally In Your Arms’ was very enthusiastic about T. Gregory. Apparently the characters were so tangible you could almost believe they were real people who should definitely be dating. Taako was smug about that, The Book Reaper had directed him to some of his favourite books in the past.

He didn’t realise how much things had snowballed from there until Lup sent him a selfie of her with the book.

[16:12] Lupita Taako??????????? [16:12] ??????????????????????????????????? [16:12] ???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [16:13] Is this Spite Book?????????????????????????????????????????????????? [16:14] DID YOU WRITE AN ENTIRE BOOK AND NOT TELL YOUR ONLY SISTER ABOUT IT??????????????????? [16:14] I’m getting 17. Everyone’s having a copy for Candlenights. [16:17] JAVITZ????? Taako, you are ridiculous. This is ridiculous. [16:17] Taako, please, I beg of you, just ask this man out.

[16:22] Taako I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be weird about it.

Okay, so guilting her may not have been the most ethical choice, but hopefully it meant he didn’t have to talk about it any more…

[16:23] Lupita YOU WROTE AN ENTIRE ROMANCE NOVEL INSTEAD OF ASKING A BOY OUT AND CALLED THE LOVE INTEREST HIS NAME WITH ONE LETTER DIFFERENT. I’M NOT THE WEIRD ONE HERE TAAKO. [16:24] Don’t think I didn’t notice Cemita Torta too. Thought that one was clever, did you? [16:27] You can’t avoid me forever Bro Bro. [16:28] Barold’s going to lose his shit when I tell him. [16:28] Javitz?! Fucking Javitz. I love you so much, Ko. [16:31] Okay, I’ve calmed down. I’m sorry, it was just a shock. [16:32] I’m really proud of you, Ko. It takes a lot to get published. It’s really good.

[16:35] Taako Taako can’t come to the phone right now.

_____________________________

Jenkins had left the letter by his cubby with a reminder that employees shouldn’t get personal post sent to work. It had arrived with the usual cafe delivery, but Taako had no idea who would be writing to him here. Especially not in high quality black envelopes with wax seals and silvery ink. He looked at the raven, embossed into the bright red wax, and carefully tore into the envelope around it. It would be rude to break something so beautiful - maybe he could cut the seal out to add to his trinkets dish.

Inside was a letter, tied together with a gods honest silver ribbon. This was the fanciest thing he’d received in his life. Carefully unwrapping the ribbon, he opened the letter, the paper was thicker than some mattresses he’d had in college.

Dear Taako,

I just wanted to write and let you know how much I enjoyed the book Finally In Your Arms. I was especially intrigued by the relationship between Javitz and Cemita - it was difficult to watch how long they both pined before Javitz realised that he just needed to act and Cemita could be his. I hope to see more of your work and hope they end up happily together.

Thank you for sharing the story with me.

Yours always (if you’ll have me),

KrJavitz.

Taako stared at it, aghast. He kept trying to formulate thoughts and failing miserably. Eventually, he shoved it in his tote and grabbed his apron. He didn’t need Jenkins getting on at him for time wasting as well as gross misuse of the company post.

Taako tried and failed not to think about the letter as he baked. He snuck back to his cubby a few times while dough was rising and cookies were baking. There was no mistaking it, even without the name at the end. It was goth shit, it was a letter to an author, therefore it was definitely Kravitz. Was it possible that Kravitz wanted to date him? But how did he know it was him? Fuck. This was a mess. It was supposed to be Taako in control. He couldn’t believe this bastard had turned the tables on him. Taako didn’t get surprised, Taako was never on the back foot, Taako thought 20 steps ahead. Taako was fucked…

__________________

Kravitz was dressed even fancier than usual. It wasn’t fair. Taako had been in work since 4am and he was wearing leggings and a slouchy shirt. He looked good natch. Taako always looked good, but this wasn’t what he’d planned to wear to tease Kravitz about reading romance, let alone to possibly discuss dating. Taako hid in the kitchen while Ren served him, but he couldn’t avoid him forever.

Taako needed to take the power back, Kravitz had basically admitted that he not only read romance, but that he had been lusting after Taako for ages. That was far more embarrassing than anything else anyone who may be involved in the situation had done.

“Afternoon Stud, written to any world famous authors lately?” Taako asked as he bussed a nearby table. He was heartened to see Kravitz choke on his coffee. Who had the upper hand now?

“That depends,” replied Kravitz, trying valiantly to regain his composure. “Written any world famous books lately?” He grinned at Taako and looked smug.

Taako pulled the free chair out with his foot and plonked himself down opposite Kravitz. “I thought you didn’t read romance books.” He said, just a smug.

Kravitz’s brows knitted together in confusion. “You wrote it because you thought I wouldn’t read it?” Then his eyes opened wide in panic. “Oh fuck, have I completely misread this? I, I’m so sorry. I thought… oh fuck.” Kravitz looked like he was about to sprint for the door.

“No, I wrote it because I knew you would.” Taako looked at him expectantly. This was his big moment, his gotcha.

Kravitz just looked baffled. “So you wrote it because I told you I didn’t read romance, but you knew I did?” He asked, slowly.

“Yeah,” Taako replied brightly. “Gotcha!”

“Taako… you, you wrote an entire book and got it published because you had a feeling I read a genre I said I didn’t?” Well, when Kravitz put it like that it sounded a bit ridiculous.

“It’s not weird. I just didn’t know how else to find out.” Taako said. Realising as soon as it left his mouth that saying something wasn’t weird was pretty much a guarantee that it was weird. He’d heard it come out of Lup’s boyfriend enough and that dude had a roadkill collection. Sure, they looked cute in their tiny hats, but it was still objectively weird. Fuck, he was on the same level as Barry.

“You could have asked… Wait, no, you did… okay. Fair. That seems like a reasonable second option.” Kravitz laughed and Taako couldn’t help but stare at him. He was illegally handsome, especially with so much joy on his face. “I was trying to show off, you know? I wanted you to like me and you said you didn’t read romance.” Kravitz said once he stopped laughing. He sounded sickeningly sincere.

“I said I didn’t read romance because you, well, your whole deal! You said you liked horror. I couldn’t tell the hot goth that most of my reading was porn with a smidge of plot, could I?” Taako probably shouldn’t have admitted the last bit… he could definitely have just said romance books.

Kravitz’s grin turned vaguely predatory and he leant forward to rest his hand on his chin. “You definitely could have…” He paused and sat up slightly again. “So… Javitz… Inspired by anyone you know?”

“Fuck off.” Said Taako, grabbing Kravitz’s napkin, scribbling his number, and shoving it back. “Text me?”

Kravitz grabbed the napkin and his phone. “Definitely.” He paused and looked up, smirking again. “I can’t wait to be encircled in your arms.”

#Who could The Book Reaper be? No one knows it's a complete mystery!#TAZ Balance #TAZ Fic #Taakitz #Taako #Kravitz #Noodyl Writes #Sometimes you just have to write a spite book to work out if someone enjoys a genre or not

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notmoreflippingelves · 4 months

Note

Naomi/Esteban: 1, 7, 16 and 55 ; Gregory/Manfred (AA): 20, 21 and 59 please!

Naomi/Esteban

Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ?

Both to be honest. Albeit in slightly different ways. Esteban is more likely to have pre-emptively made a decision/taken action without informing Naomi or asking for her permission first. And Naomi would be livid that she wasn't consulted beforehand. Esteban would be very smug and condescending and talk about how he knows better since he's older (physically, maybe but not necessarily mentally) and wiser (questionable) so Naomi should defer to his judgement. And he would use "I love you" in a slightly manipulative way to try and silence all her protestations. (It doesn't work. His love for her just makes her even more determined to save him from his own noble urges).

In circumstances that specifically involve Esteban putting himself at risk (to protect Naomi/other members of his family/Avalor), he would probably also try to pull the "I am older and less worthy/important, so I am more disposable if things should go wrong" bullshit, which would make Naomi absolutely livid.

Also I think it would be impossible for Naomi to end the argument simply with "because I love you." She would specifically end it with "because I love you, you asshole!" (Emphasis on that last part). Sure she loves him and wants him to know that's why she's behaving as she is. But she also wants to remind him that he is incredibly aggravating and often stupid and she can just barely stand the sight of him sometimes.

Would they build a pillow fort together just because?

Just because? No I don't think so. And certainly not together. That being said, I can see them building separate pillow forts under very specific circumstances for the sheer purpose of outdoing each other. One of them mentioned building pillow forts as children and being very good at it. And the other immediately follows up with "That is nothing. I built forts twice as high and just as impressive." and the inevitable response is "Oh yeah. Prove it!"

And so there just ends up being the pettiest little competition as to who can build the best fort. (Elena is named the judge since she has a foot in both camps. And she's rather shook about the whole thing. She herself would've absolutely accepted a pillow fort building challenge in an instant. But like she kind of expected Naomi and Esteban of all people to act like actual, reasonable adults--as they do in most circumstances. But no, they are the ones acting like children just because neither can bend even in a little where the other is concerned).

Not sure who would win the competition, though I might have to give a slight edge to Esteban. Simply because we know he likes to stack a pillow given the like 6+ we see on his bed in the sick day episode. (Of course, if Elena had taken part, she probably would've won because she has even more stacked pillows on her own bed and she's more stubborn than either of the others to boot).

Can they stay up all night just talking?

Could they stay up all night talking? Yes, probably. Both have a lot to say, enjoy the sound of their own voice, and like spending as much time as they possibly can with their partner.

Would they stay up all night talking? I kind of doubt it. While both are very hard workers, they are also two of the more practical characters on the show. (To an extent, Esteban can definitely have his super irrational moments). Therefore, they know the importance of getting a good night's sleep. They also seem like the sort that genuinely enjoy the sleep that they get. Like they're not going to protest too much or try to stay up any longer than necessary. Sleep is good (especially in each other's arms), so there is no strong drive to push it off.

Do they like watching clouds or star gazing?

Both of them are canonically into sailing, and using the stars to navigate is kind of a big part of that. So I definitely think they would look at the stars together. Additionally, Naomi has lived in a bunch of different places, and Esteban traveled a lot during his time as chancellor. So I think they would both know and talk a lot about the different names for various constellations in different places--as well as any legends/stories associated with these or the stars themselves.

On a similar note, they might also watch the clouds a bit--but more out of practicality than enjoyment. It's always good to be on top of changes in the weather--especially when one or both is out at sea and/or if they have specific plans outdoors in the near future. That being said, Naomi is particularly fond of pointing out any cloud that she sees that even vaguely resembles Esteban's facial hair. (Esteban's usual reply: "You do me a great disservice with that remark, Miss Turner! I would never allow such a miserable, misshapen thing to grace my face.")

Gregory/Manfred

Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship.

I'm sorry, but I am so bad at this. I don't know music like at all. (It's really just musical theater and artists my parents like. That is the extent of my music knowledge).

So we're gonna have a few songs from random musicals and they're gonna be angsty since that's where my brain goes with this ship.

So I don't think this one will come as a particular surprise especially given I know you are a Les Mis fan...but yeah, the whole sequence of Confrontation --> Stars--> Javert's Suicide.

Just Manfred being horrified and disgusted at being at Gregory's mercy and the audacity of this man to be kind and just and dedicated toward the Truth when he has no right. Just go ahead and substitute "defense attorney" for "thief"/"criminal" in a lot of Javert's lyrics, and you've got Manfred being a toxic, doomed, would-be tsundere.

"Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief/ Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase./ I am the Law and the Law is not mocked./ I'll spit his pity right back in his face./ There is nothing on Earth that we share....

"How can I allow this man to hold dominion over me...This desperate man whom I have hunted."

And as for another toxic musical yaoi ship, Judas' reprise of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. (Arguably Mary Magdalene's original as well). Just Manfred destroying the man that he loves (unrequitedly?) as Judas has done--simply because their goals are not aligned and because he doesn't know how to handle his feelings that he can't help but feel are irrational--especially as Gregory (or Jesus in the original) is just so damned Good and Manfred knows he never would've been worthy of him.

And even though I don't particularly read MVK as wallowing in guilt nearly as much as I do with Kristoph in krisnix, I think here could be an element of that there as well.

"I have been splattered with innocent blood./ I will be dragged through the slime and the mud./ I have been splattered with innocent blood!/ I will be dragged through the slime and the slime and the slime and the mud...

I..I don't know how to love Him./ I don't know why he moves me./ He's a man; he's just a man./ He is not a King./ He is just the same as anyone I know. /He scares me so."

There's also a bit of a similar feel from Burr's parts of "The World was Wide Enough " from Hamilton. Realizing that your idealogical opposite and narrative foil and foe didn't need to die at your hands. That your victory at long last is distinctly Pyrrhic and that there was and should've been room for both of you in the courtroom (which is THE world for all intents and purposes for Manfred).

(For both of the above songs, the beginning isn't really the vibe for angsty Manfred/Greg, so I went ahead and linked to right where the relevant part starts).

And on a much, much lighter note. "Horny Angry Tango" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (Bonus in that both characters are lawyers and the background of this is them duking it out in court in a proxy battle for their relationship issues.) Just Manfred and Gregory getting super hot under the collar while arguing against each other in court, but also like genuinely being furious with each other as opposed to just horny and in denial.

And similarly, You're Only Second Rate from The Return of Jafar. I see this as early in Manfred and Gregory knowing each other. Manfred is just so aggravated by Gregory and thinks its so absurd that Gregory thinks he is a match for him. And he just quickly becomes overly obsessed with him in a totally not healthy or normal way that Greg in no way asked for. But Manfred just can't let this go for some reason. (It's a crush; he's got a crush, but he'll never realize it).

Who would get into a fight to defend the other’s honor? Who tends to the other’s wounds?

I'm not sure I can see either of them getting into a fight to defend the other's honor. Gregory doesn't ever think fighting is the answer, and it would take awhile for Manfred to ever get to the point where he is self-aware enough to admit that he cares about Gregory in order to defend him.

That being said, I can definitely see Manfred getting into a fight that concerns Gregory in some way. Maybe he's jealous of someone else he thinks is moving in on his man? Or someone (Gant probably) makes this mistake of teasing Manfred about his obvious "crush." Then, Manfred gets really really defensive about it (he's so in denial) and may even retaliate with his fists if the person is really pushy about it.

Greg would have to be around to bandage Manfred's wounds, but he would definitely do it and very carefully. Which of course makes Manfred even more furious about everything. HOW DARE HE BE KIND WHEN THIS IS ALL HIS FAULT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Who tops? Who bottoms?

Honestly, I don't think I've ever seriously thought about this, lol. I am friendly with some Manfredf*ckers, though and so I have thought/heard a little bit about their thoughts re: von Karma sex in general.

My main feeling is that I feel like whether Manfred would top or bottom depends entirely on whom he is being shipped with. He bottoms for Gant and Blaise, he tops Udgey, Yanni, Phoenix, Miles or Kristoph (I've only seen it one fic but like...👀).

But as for Gregory...you know I have a feeling Manfred would bottom for him too. Specifically in the sense of being a rather pushy power bottom and sort of for similar reasons as Kristoph. He's super uptight and repressed--and I feel there's a part of him that would enjoy losing some of his trademark control and perfection but specifically in a controlled, safe, private environment like the bedroom. Also, he's worth it so he would enjoy making his partner do most of the work and he just sits and enjoys like the perfect and deserving von Karma that he is.

As for Gregory, I guess see him more as a service top anyway. He doesn't strike me as particularly dominant, but he strikes me as a submissive even less. Maybe it's the overall "dad" energy that he exudes, but I feel like he would be very attentive to his partner and focus on making sure that they feel good and are well-looked after.

So yeah, they're probably both switches but in this case, Greg as service top to Manfred's power-bottom.

#gregory edgeworth #manfred von karma #naomi turner #esteban flores #gregfred #esteomi #a little bit of estebalenaomi for you too in question 2 #ace attorney #elena of avalor #oh wow elves is talking about jcs again; how original #honestly for some reason thinking about gregfred made me think about superman/lex luthor #why? it's literally just cause clark and greg both wear glasses and have a rich enemy who is canonically obsessed w/ them #otherwise there is nothing in common #and now my brain is just whirring about...is lex luthor a power bottom too? Why am I even thinking about it?#if he were to get superman to top him once; would he stop thinking about world domination?#food for thought #honestly these two ships couldn't be more different tbh but they definitely have the delicious tsundere factor in common #now i'm wondering what the eoa characters would look in an ace attorney AU #I feel like Naomi would have beef with Klavier Gavin (it's onesided) and would probably bond with Ema over it.#i can't decide whether klavier and prince alonso would be best friends or bitter rivals (who secretly want to kiss)#but either way they would be obsessed with each other #i can also see esteban getting a bit of a crush on dhurke sadmadhi too but not sure it would go anywhere #he probably wouldn't even recognize it as a crush tbh #just like 'wow. he's so cool and manly and mysterious. like a hero from a storybook.'#like how i hc esteban has a crush on antonio agama but also doesn't realize it #oh esteban and minister inga would definitely have so much beef tho #it would be glorious to watch them do passive aggressive extreme diplomacy while being THIS close to straight up murdering each other #naomi would be munching popcorn like there's no tomorrow --as she should #ask memes

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riahlynn101 · 8 months

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Whumptober - Day Two: "I'll Call Your Name, but You Won't Call Back."

Trigger warnings: blood, a child in distress, implied/referenced murder, and mind control.

I was highly inspired by the 95 tweet Gregory defense thread. Their twitter was suspended, but they have a new account under Gregory's personal bodyguard.

Anyway, enjoy the mimic being absolutely insane :))

Nothing better than forced found family.....

“Gregory!” The mimic calls out in a soft male voice, inching his way from the charging station. Tendrils of smoke still cling to him, disappearing slowly due to the poor ventilation system down here. It hadn’t been his first, second, or even third option, but the nightmare gas William Afton created worked wonders on keeping Gregory close to his side.

He stares down at the rumpled blankets on the boy’s bed. A bed that has been empty for months now. The mimic remembers letting Gregory skip making his bed for the day. He can’t recall why he had done so. Only that he had, and then never came back. Well, at least, not really. (His blood…or…er ... ...oil boiled whenever he thought about his boy betraying him - trapping him with concrete).

“Gregory, please come back,” he says, voice morphing into a woman’s. It used to be one of his boy’s favorites. Whenever Gregory had a nightmare, tossing and turning, the voice worked wonders on getting him settled again.

The mimic isn’t as naive as everyone that crosses him thinks he is. Sure, he doesn’t have the same life experience as a normal human, nor does he think the same way they do. But he can comprehend, albeit on a basic level, that what he does isn’t right.

He’s seen the conflict in Vanessa’s and Gregory’s eyes as they fought against his control.

He’s heard them cry and whine and beg for him to leave them.

And that’s not even mentioning the other victims that always seemed to find him when he was in the worst of his moods.

Sometimes, the mimic feels like it should care. It doesn’t, and no amount of begging ever made him change his mind. If anything it would just up the dose Gregory would get while he slept. Call it petty, but he can’t bear to have his boy leave him.

Vanessa less so, but he became almost ...fond of her in his own little way. Not enough not to consider tearing her head from her body when he sees her again, but the feeling was there.

He fluffs the mildew and mold-covered pillow. Dust kicks up, flying into his face. The mimic remains impassive - both because he’s forever cursed with no facial expressions and because it doesn’t bother him.

He can still remember the day he first met Gregory.

It had been a few weeks before the opening of the pizzaplex. The mimic had been relegated to watching and listening through Vanessa’s eyes - occasionally giving her orders. He knew even before taking over her mind that he needed at least two people to do his bidding.

He spotted him first during a conference, sitting next to his father, doodling the entire time. His wild brown hair, big brown eyes, and small frame brought back the only good memories the mimic ever had. It couldn’t stop staring at the boy, which (unfortunately) meant he forced Vanessa to stare at him too for the duration of the three-plus hour long meeting - making nearly everyone uncomfortable. (Thankfully, the boy’s father hadn’t seemed to notice).

Shaking out the blanket, the mimic dusts off the moth-eaten covers. He can see the boxsprings through the mattress, but this was the best he could do - especially with the circumstances.

Despite being entranced by the mere sight of Gregory, the mimic hadn’t planned for the boy to stay any longer than the meeting. But then, the boy had giggled at one thing or another. The sound was contagious. The sound reminded him of….

It knew right then and there that the boy belonged here with him.

He gently lays the blanket over the mattress, spreading it flat.

It took two full months to come up with a plan. And not because it couldn’t just order Vanny to snatch the boy after the meeting. No, he wanted to wait until he was fully operational to be able to welcome his boy home.

He watched his boy make friends while his father attended meetings. Gregory had a knack for making everyone like him. He seemed to bring a sort of light to the pizzaplex. Even more so when he comforted one of their technician’s daughters, making her feel better after being abandoned by her friends.

A month following that incident, it ordered Vanessa to go retrieve the boy through any means necessary.

His orders were absolute, which meant she had to follow them to the letter.

It would never know what transpired that night between the pizzaplex and Gregory’s home. He himself had been busy setting up the finishing touches to his boy’s tiny corner of the room. The mimic had overheard him say Glamrock Freddy was his favorite, so he painstakingly tucked some white sheets into a vaguely bear shape and used a blue sharpie to draw in its features. Upstairs had plushies galore, but he wanted his son to have something he had made himself.

Vanny dragged his boy into the room. To say the boy was a mess would be an understatement.

Blood soaked the front of his clothes. His already wild hair was in tangles. Gregory trembled pathetically on the ground in front of it, pjs doing little to protect him from the chilly air. His cheek had been heavily bruised as well as his legs and arms. Tiny cuts, like nails digging into his arms, were visible on his wrists.

“I-I want to go home,” the boy sniffled. He hadn’t cried, though his ruddy face told the mimic all it needed to.

“You are home,” it had answered, kneeling down to get closer.

“But my mom and dad-”

“Are dead.” It gestured over to Vanny, who was still standing idle, waiting for instructions. Blood covered the bunny suit.

At that, Gregory broke down. “D-dead…?” He had asked, with all the brokenness of a child who had just learned the world was an unfair, unjust place.

“But it’s okay, you can stay here with us.”

His son had shook his head frantically. “No! You’re lying! I want to go home! Let me leave!”

It gripped him by the shoulders, refusing to allow Gregory to move more than an inch away. “Your parents are dead, Gregory. Let it go.”

His brown eyes watered over, and tears streamed down his face.

“Oh, but it will be okay,” he murmured, bringing Gregory into a hug, “You can stay here with me, and play all the games you want and eat anything you’d like. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Gregory sniffled again, leaning into the hug. “I guess…” he sounded unsure, like he wouldn’t hesitate to leave if given a chance. And the mimic….the mimic couldn’t have that.

He needed two people to do his bidding anyway.

It had Vanny rig up one of pizzaplex’s arcade games to infect Gregory with the glitchtrap virus. The result being a loyal son who only occasionally tried to disobey him.

He pats the bed one last time.

The bed that has been empty for far too long.

But he glances in the direction of the elevator, after today’s incident, it’s sure he can expect his son home soon. Very, very soon.

#whumptober2023 #no.2 #I'll call your name but you won't call back #cross posted on ao3 #fnaf fanfic #fnaf gregory #fnaf au #fnaf vanessa #fnaf mimic #whumptober #tw dead mention #tw blood #tw kidnapping #tw kidnap mention

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ask-agent-rapzutin-vodello · 9 months

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[Prompt suggestion] Raz and lizzie start trying to make a house of cards but then argue over the timeline of fnaf randomly.

"Raz, if you're don't knock it off, you're gonna knock this off!" Lizzie informed sternly, as she telekinetically tried to carefully place two new cards on another floor of their ever-growing house of cards. She gave her little surrogate brother an evil side-glace. "And if it does, so help me whatever deity available, because ..."

"Yeah, yeah, don't get your tats in a twist."

Lizzie chuckled, despite her minor annoyance. "Tall talk for a short twerp like you."

"Oh Jeez, I think this bottom card is slipping. How about I-"

"You touch that card, there's nowhere in the Motherlobe you'll be safe." Lizzie briefly looked away from her work to give Raz a smirk and a wink. "Got that?"

"Crystal." Raz paused for a few moments, but an ever-growing grin and misschievous glint in his eyes betrayed his true intentions. "But still!"

"Raz!"

It had all started as a little challenge between the two: see who could make the biggest house of cards without using their hands. They had started on it about an hour ago, with both of them equeally matched until Razputin got distracted by a minor explosion in Gisu's room, which made his card house topple like ...a house of cards.

Lizzie was still in the game, but Raz decided to add another layer of difficulty to the Goth's challenge and was trying his utter best to break her concentration. His latest attempt had him arguing about the inconsistencies of the timeline of a certain horror game famed for jumpscares.

"How did the Pizzaplex get so ruined in the DLC? They never said how much time had passed and Gregory is still a kid." Raz continued, his smug grin stretching further and further. "It doesn't make any sense."

Lizzie let out a frustrated groan. "Raz, if you don't quit it, I'll - AH!"

Lizzie had placed her two cards a bit too quickly, making the whole ten storey cardboard building tumbling down in a heap of Psychonauts themed playing cards. She stared at her fallen construction, her pupils almost tiny dots in her eyes.

Raz chuckled nervously. "Uh ...I'm not getting a head start, am I?"

Lizzie inhaled deeply and slowly released the air through her nose. She slowly stood up from her chair, dusted off her pants and turned to Razputin with a smile. "No."

"Thought so." Raz yelped as Lizzie took a swipe at him, missing him by this much. He quickly crawled under the table, trying to put some distance between him and his newly anointed huntress. "Can't you just start over?"

Lizzie grabbled under the table, managing to take hold of Raz by the hem of his pants leg. "I could, but I need to vent some frustration first, and you are the nearest ticklish object in my vicinity, so you're gonna suffer in laughter first."

Raz managed to kick his leg free and bolted from under the table. He tried to make a run to the door, but Lizzie had inticipated this and was blocking his escape.

"Nowhere to run, Pooter!" Lizzie informed with a wicked grin.

But Raz, in his many years of engaging his surrogate siblings in these types of chases, had learned a trick or two to deal with this sort of situation. He TK'ed a pillow from the couch and send it flying directly into Lizzie's face. In the few seconds his sudden surprise attack had given him, he managed to slide under Lizzie's legs and ran as fast his own legs could take him.

As he ran, he saw Adam in the hallway, about to drink a cup of tea.

"Make way, Adam!" Raz yelled.

Adam managed to push himself against the wall just in time to let Raz pass.

"What the-?"

Lizzie came running down the hall as well. "Move, Gette!" She ran past Adam. "Get back here, Razputin!"

Adam looked over to the room they just ran out of, and turned his attention back to the pair. "Oi, I'm not cleaning up after you lot!"

"I'll make Raz do it once I'm done with him!"

"Will not!"

"Will too!"

Their taunting voices drifted away further and further. Adam shook his head with a chuckle. "Always something happening here...." He took a sip of his tea and pulled a face. "Darn, forgot the sugar."

#This was way to vague to make into a long story #have a short one instead #I don't know enough about fnaf to be honest. I never played the games. too scared.#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #razputin vodello au #lizzie natividad #razputin vodello #adam joseph gette

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snowe-zolynn-rogers · 1 year

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Golden Freddy just showing off Eclipse to his sons and telling him that he disowned Sun and took custody of his kid. And Freddy and Glamrock Freddy had no idea he even adopted Sun and Moon, or that Sun got a kid, but Glamrock Freddy has actual experience with raising human kids and can give him some pointers. Advice like “make him real food every once in awhile, not just canned steak dinners”. (Recent episode revealed that Golden Freddy mostly eats canned food because it’s cheap and lasts forever. Canned steak dinners were actually used as an example)

Gregory finding out that guy who traumatized him in murder mystery and fucked up his mom’s brain is now his 14 year old human cousin.

Glamrock Freddy finding out the guy who fucked up his ex-wife’s brain and traumatized his son is now his 14-year-old heavily traumatized nephew. But he’s actually a good person with emotional intelligence and good communication skills, so he’d just need a bit of screaming his stress into a pillow to get over it.

You can likely imagine the shock Glamrock Freddy goes into seeing Eclipse eating canned steak for dinner like it’s the best meal in the world and Golden Freddy happily cleaning off Eclipse’s face after, since he doesn’t really understand how to eat without using his hands and simply stuffing food in his mouth.

To be fair with the grandson thing, technically Moon would still be his adopted son (since Moon was practically helpless but stuck in the horrible situation) and Eclipse is Moon’s making, so he could simply claim he adopted full custody of his grandson from Moon, which would only raise more questions on how exactly the local asexual aromantic guy made a kid with someone apparently.

Gregory would probably accept this and move on and ask Eclipse if he’s ever played Mario Kart, which he answers no, because he hasn’t and Gregory and him play Mario Kart for hours.

Eclipse would have likely blocked out certain memories surrounding what he’d done before he was a prisoner as a defense mechanism, so he has little idea besides what’s told to him of what he did back then. He would probably love to be around Glamrock Freddy since he’s incredibly paternal and gives out free hugs and both of which he’s desperately needed for a long time.

#five nights at freddy’s #fnaf #sun and moon show #sams #fnaf prisoner eclipse #human eclipse #fnaf golden freddy #fnaf freddy #glamrock freddy #fnaf gregory #fnaf eclipse #fnaf moon #snoweyanswers #anon #tw partial amnesia mention

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gali-la · 3 months

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Writing Patterns

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

1: Marked as His

Published 2024-02-23 | One Piece | Explicit | 2.9k | Bartolomeo/Trafalgar D. Water Law

Law was slammed against the door, shoulders making harsh contact first and then the rest of his body followed, only slightly pillowed by Bartolomeo’s hands on his ass and the small of his back.

2: take everything with you (but leave the sun behind)

Die for me, Monet.

3: Valentine's to Remember

Published 2024-02-14 | One Piece | Explicit | 2.6k | Thatch/Marco/Portgas D. Ace

Thatch woke to soft caresses, gentle touches and organic warmth—the press of his boyfriends against him in their still-warm bed, beams of muted sunlight lighting the room with sunny, pleasant oranges and cheerful yellows.

4: (Walking, Talking) Midlife Crisis

Published 2024-01-27 | One Piece | Gen | 312 words | Doflamingo

Doflamingo was a walking, talking midlife crisis.

5: Surprise

Published 2024-01-23 | One Piece | Explicit | 2.8k | Rosinante/Katakuri

Paperwork, Katakuri had decided approximately ten years ago, was his least favorite thing when it came to running his island of Island of Wheat.

6: No Sleep

Published 2024-01-22 | Hunter x Hunter | Gen | 1.6k | Knuckle Bine/Shoot McMahon

It’d been two weeks since the battle, six days since Shoot had been released from the hospital with orders to rest and take it easy.

7: Came Back Wrong

Published 2024-01-18 | Demon Slayer | Gen | 594 words | Rengoku Kyoujuro

It was the middle of the night.

8: Matching Sweaters

Published 2024-01-17 | House M.D. | Gen |390 words | Gregory House/James Wilson

The moment House stepped through the door, he knew something was wrong.

9: Match Made in Heaven

Published 2024-01-15 | One Piece | Gen | 1.8k | Roronoa Zoro/Trafalgar D. Water Law

Law would like to say that he was a very patient man.

10: Day 7: Eustass Day!

Published 2024-01-12 | One Piece | Mature | 1.4k | Eustass Kid/Kid Pirates

It was nearing the middle of the night.

Patterns: I'm gonna be honest here, I don't see a lot of patterns. Two middle of the nights and a lot of names, but no themes? they fluctuate between long and short, too, seems im just a dice toss on the best of days

Thank you for the tag, @chromatic-lamina!! This was fun to explore, especially since beginnings and endings always feel so tough for me.

tagging anyone who wants a go!! this was super fun, I encourage everyone to try it out <3

#one piece #one piece fanfic #fanfic tag game #tag game

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inhumanfuckingdogman · 1 year

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I want he last shot of tom and greg to be a side by side of their jail bars sliding shut over them after theyre put in different prisons following their illicit affair & further white collar crimes. Actually i want it to be greg making wooby eyes through the glass at tom after pinning all his crimes on him promising he’ll write and thank u soooooo much for doing this tommy youre seriously the best and toms like yeah whatever (but then he goes back to his cell and starts fucking a pillow with a picture of greg taped to it and muttering like oh yeah you like that you dirty little pinocchio. You filthy little wooden judas. You like when tommy takes good care of you dont you (his roommate is still there.)) actually i want tomgreg sex scene but its only one scene where greg is really confused as to why exactly hes being propositioned for a blowie (this is at logans funeral. In the coat check) but does it anyways (because hes insane) and we see him going down on tom and then tom hissing and being like “teeTH, GREGORY” and the next day they go to jail bc logan was the only thing keeping them in the company and therefore out of harms way. Actually i w

#succ #obsessed obsessed obsessed #apologies to all mourning s4 finale i love finality and closure. i want tomgreg to go to jail forreal #I WANT THEM TO GET WORSE ! THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT. IF YOU WANT CRINGEFAIL WHOLESOME OFFICE ROMANCE WATCB MP100 #IM HERE TO WATCH WHITE MEN GET WORSE !!

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fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction · 4 months

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Vanny Night

Vincent helps Gregory work through and dispel the nightmare of the Vanny Confrontation. What he learns gives him a lot of concern for the future of his friends and Vanessa and Gregory.

Time Set: Post-SB, pre-Ruin, Vincent POV

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

“I know it’s tricky to find a therapist that can handle your unique situation, but I don’t think I can maintain this kind of work for you guys for the long term,” Ven sighed, letting Vanessa and Gregory into the apartment. A couch in the den was already set up with a soft pillow and a plush chair pushed nearby. A graphic tablet rested on the coffee table, screen dark and pen tucked into its stand. He’d been doing work on a commission when he got the request to help with the return of Gregory’s nightmares. Hearing Vanessa’s words over the phone had resonated with a sense of fear and worry, so Ven figured letting Vincent deal with the situation would be best.

Sooner this was done, sooner he could get back to work. Rent was coming up and he still had to pitch in his part for the shared apartment.

“Sorry, we’re still trying to find someone who can work with cases of amnesia, and then I gotta figure out how to explain how our amnesia was something deliberately caused by Elizabeth Afton,” Vanessa apologized and explained, fluffing the pillow as Gregory climbed up and lay down on the couch. “There’s so much baggage we have to deal with thanks to her. It’s a mess.”

He understood. Sometimes, Ven wished he could find outside help for himself and Damien and Stephanie. Best they could do was talk things out with Vincent and have the spirit soothe their thoughts and disperse the negative build up of energy. Still, there were more and more people being brought into the group who had been affected by the Aftons and Fazbear Entertainment, and Vincent clamored to help them all as much as he could. The drain on Ven as backlash was just even more of a pain to deal with.

“Probably doesn’t help that the last few therapists I’ve talked to before all ended up disappearing,” Vanessa muttered, a faint scowl on her face, “Wonder if that was also Afton’s fault?”

“Makes you wonder how much bleach that company burns through,” Ven quipped, taking a seat in the plush chair and settling in. “Okay, Gregory, remember how we do this?”

“Yeah, I just relax and act like I’m getting ready to sleep and try not to fight against you knocking on the door,” the boy said in a bored tone that didn’t match up with the exhausted expression he wore. “Freddy keeps me company at night, but he also said that it would be better if I actually slept, so I hope this stupid nightmare can be made to go away.”

“Vincent should be able to find the root of it and pull it out. If he can’t, he can disperse enough of the nightmare to make it easier for you to sleep at least.” Well, that was Ven’s hope; as the man’s reincarnation, he was well aware that the counselor would go as far as he could to help a kid. Ven just didn’t want to pay the price for it after, it was so annoying.

Gregory nodded and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then relaxing. Ven did the same, receding in his mind and letting the soul within himself awaken and reach out with the Remnant wrapped around him.

With Vincent now in control of the situation, the Remnant carefully touched onto Gregory’s mind, a gentle ‘knock on the door’ as the boy had described. There was no response, no reaction, and then a sudden surge and a blast of neon color.

One hand raised to shield his eyes as he blinked the spots from his vision, Vincent Heliotrope stood still, making himself as harmless and open as possible while giving Gregory time to verify that his mind wouldn’t be in any danger. In a way, it wasn’t surprising to him to find that the boy was fiercely protective of his mental faculties. Gregory’s Remnant had been scrubbed slowly over a long period of time, memories shredded and soul weakened to make him more vulnerable to being possessed by a far stronger spirit. Whoever he had been before Elizabeth Afton got her hands on him was likely destroyed beyond recognition.

And yet, Vincent still harbored hopes that he could pull some of those lost memories up to the light, restore a bit more of who Gregory had been. Each session of these nightmare dispelling trips had him pulling apart complex nightmares and unrealities, but very little in the way of old memories came through.

Gregory’s mental world was a reconstruction of the Pizzaplex, essentially his whole world for much of his life after the memory erasure. Glowing neon signs abounded in the empty pizzeria complex, a number of attractions were sealed off with concrete walls, thin gray fog hung close to the floor, and the Glamrock Fazband were on stage in the atrium, performing as normal. The ideal Pizzaplex, according to the boy who called it home once upon a time.

The prickling feeling on his skin faded, Gregory’s check complete, and Vincent breathed a sigh of relief, lowering his hand and flexing it to work the last of the stinging out. Still no sign of Gregory. Where was he this time?

He started walking through the atrium, the click of his work shoes against almost familiar tile echoing despite the rock music from the band. In a way, Vincent was glad for the security guard uniform he wore as an awakened soul. It helped him fit in with this particular mindscape and the soft navy blue color was drastically different enough from the Pizzaplex guard uniforms that Gregory was more accepting of his presence.

“Gregory, I need you to show me where the nightmare is originating from,” Vincent called out, stepping onto escalators that didn’t work and climbing them to reach the next level of the atrium floors. With how big the Pizzaplex was, he could get lost for ages just exploring, even with a lot of areas blocked off. “Can you tell me what is in this one? What images do you see? Are there any aspects you recognize?” he asked aloud. There had to be something he could grab onto as a starting point.

The atrium shimmered and then went dark, leaving Vincent standing in pitch black for a moment. When the glow of neon came back, the surroundings had changed to one of the interior attractions, Fazer Blast. S.T.A.F.F. bots wearing colored helmets and clutching laser guns in hand patrolled the maze of colored walls and obstacles. Vincent squinted his eyes nearly shut, waiting for his vision to adjust to the stark gleam of bright colors.

The audio system crackled to life and he winced, looking up as a distorted woman’s voice rang out, “Disassemble Freddy!” He sucked in a sharp breath, eyes widening at the implication of that command. A quick look around had him spot the patrolling bots all turn in unison and rush towards a specific direction. Vincent ran after them, grimacing at the sound of screams and the shriek of metal.

As fast as he moved, it clearly wasn’t fast enough. The S.T.A.F.F. bots had vanished and the neon lights faded down to muted colors to match the somber scene Vincent stumbled across. Gregory knelt by a gutted and maimed Glamrock Freddy, sobbing pitifully over the deactivated animatronic. This must be the nightmare that was plaguing him now, an unreality to strip him of the only ally he had for much of the night in the Pizzaplex before the Guards were able to get inside and turn the tide.

“Oh, Gregory,” Vincent murmured sympathetically, carefully approaching the boy and lowering himself to one knee beside him. Gregory didn’t seem to register his presence. Odd, that was one of Vincent’s abilities; his simple presence was enough to soothe and comfort grieving people, give them a moment to collect themselves and start gaining hope again. Well, time to start dispelling the lie and find the truth buried under the illusion.

Why did this scenario exist? How did it get planted into Gregory’s dreams? Vincent raised a hand to the broken Freddy, gently prodding at it with his own Remnant to find the memories and emotions building the image. Spite and scorn crackled like crimson lightning over the casing of the animatronic, jumping up and lashing at his hand, leaving a nasty burn that had him yelp and jerk away in pain.

Crap, that was going to leave a mark on Ven’s body. He was gonna get yelled at for this later. Clearly whatever implanted this nightmare had heavy negative feelings towards Glamrock Freddy. Vincent pressed forward, hands held over the wrecked animatronic as he threw his own Remnant into the miasma, pulling it apart. The dull orange and red casing began melting away, leaving an endoskeleton that didn’t look like any he’d ever seen before.

Mismatched parts and components, assembled haphazardly; the endoskeleton laying on the carpeted floor was a rusty amalgamation that didn’t look like it belonged in the Pizzaplex. “Gregory, open your eyes! Look at the reality, this was never Freddy!” Vincent urged, pushing the cloud of angry Remnant aside and scowling at it as he kept tearing it apart, burning the energy out of the boy’s head.

“Wh-why? Why do this to Freddy? He’s my friend, he didn’t do anything wrong, he was just trying to help me get out!” Gregory sobbed. His hands were covering his face, shoulders shaking from the force of his grief.

No, not just grief…. Vincent waved his hand aside, ignoring the sting as the cloud of spite finally fell apart, and looked around at a fog of emotion rolling in, heavy gray. It sapped at his energy before he could pull up a mental shield but the contact helped him identify the emotion. This was guilt. Why did Gregory feel guilty in this situation? It was that voice that had issued the command to kill Freddy. Who was it that gave the order?

“Gregory, didn’t you say that Freddy keeps you company at night, when you can’t sleep?” Vincent asked, once more lowering himself to one knee by the boy. Gregory nodded, breath hitching between sobs as he pulled his hands down at last. “Freddy isn’t in this condition here if he’s outside in your home, right?”

“Right… right, he was talking to me last night. We talked about FazFacts. I’m trying to tell him that bears don’t actually eat pizza,” he murmured, blinking as if pulling himself out of a dream, “He’s okay. Freddy didn’t get disassembled. But I remember her saying it. She said it, didn’t she?”

“She might have said it at some point, but it didn’t actually happen if Freddy is able to talk to you while you’re awake,” Vincent explained as his brow furrowed in confusion, “Um, by the way, who is ‘she’?”

Gregory rubbed at his eyes, the cloud of guilt still drifting around them, a misty fog that lingered at their ankles. “Vanny, duh,” the boy replied, the dry snark returning to him as he stared down at the rusty endoskeleton that had posed as Freddy in the unreality, “You’ve seen her a few times, didn’t you?”

A woman in a rabbit costume, crimson eyes and open-mouthed smile, dancing around with a blade in her hand through Gregory’s nightmares like she was gleefully still trying to rip his personality to shreds. He’d seen her, but never heard her. Vincent hummed to himself, lips pursed as he ran his fingers lightly through the fog of guilt, lifting his hand as the mist threaded between them and slipped away. This was too heavy for a child to bear. Where was this guilt coming from?

“This is another one of her fake realities, isn’t it?” Gregory grumbled, glowering with dried tears on his face as he stood up. “This was the nightmare I kept having, I remembered this happening, but… it didn’t actually happen.” Vincent stood with him, gazing over the dark walls of the Fazer Blast game room. Shadows seemed to grow deeper, swallowing the walls and highlighting the rabbit figure swaying in the illuminated windows of a room suspended over the game room.

“Why are there so many fake memories?” he asked, “How does this one end?”

Gregory’s hands tightened into fists at his sides. “I remember going up to the exit and then I wanted to turn back, stop Vanny from making more people disappear, find what it was that she was hiding that I needed to get back. So I told Freddy we were going to face her because she wouldn’t expect me to stay after 6 A.M.,” he began and looked up with a glower at the illuminated room, “But she was ready for us. She took control of the S.T.A.F.F. bots and disassembled Freddy. If I hadn’t said to stay, for us to go after her here, he wouldn’t have been torn apart.”

So that was the source of the guilt. “You’re a kid, no more responsible for the choices made by Vanny and Freddy in this illusion than you were for Afton’s decision to take your childhood away from you just because you were strong enough to withstand her experiments,” Vincent told him firmly, “This is a misplaced guilt. Let those who made their decisions own them.” He gestured outward, throwing his arm out in a direction that could be the main entrance. “Freddy could have refused to let you stay, pushed you right out those doors in that false memory, but he didn’t,” he added, “Think about who Freddy is, you know him best. He would have shoved you out for your own good, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah, he was determined to get me out and was going to take Knife Lady to where she wanted to go himself, without me. I had to chase after him with Vanessa to make him let me come along,” Gregory agreed slowly, eyes clearing as the memory pieced itself back together for him, “The fake memory version let Freddy agree with me at the start so I’d blame myself, huh?”

Vincent nodded. He caught on, good. By discovering that truth himself, he could rely on it as his own realization, supported and verified with confirmation by a trusted adult. It’d be harder to paint another illusion on top of that. But the false memory still needed to finish to fully burn and dispel it. Otherwise it’d just stay rooted in place and develop a new illusion, a new nightmare.

“How does this memory end, Gregory?” Vincent asked again.

“This way!” the boy yelled, racing for a door marked for employees, flashlight and laser gun suddenly in his hands. Vincent chased after him, hand batting aside the mist as he followed the bright glow of Gregory’s flashlight. His first instinct was to guide him to a more direct approach to Vanny’s room, but if this was a recurring nightmare built on a false memory like what had been done to Damien, then Gregory was the better leader. He would have run the same paths over and over to its conclusion.

Through the back tunnels, Vincent followed Gregory, yelping and ducking when a faceless animatronic lunged at them from the shadows of a dimly lit server room. A buzzing sounded in the air, tension crackling through the air like blood-pink static that irritated his eyes. “Why are we running?! Is something chasing us?!” he cried, wincing at the crashing noise as the animatronic smashed into something.

“Yeah! Vanny!” Gregory yelled back, “Can’t you hear the buzzing?! That’s from her!”

But Vanny was in the room over the laser shooter game. How could she have moved from up there to ground level with Gregory so fast? “That’s more proof this is a fake memory! If you just saw Vanny in that room up in the air, there’s no way she could suddenly be behind you on your way up to that very room!” Vincent called out. The boy zapped a S.T.A.F.F. bot and kicked it at its body, shoving it aside as the wheels carried it away while it flailed. He paused just enough to give him an incredulous look before shaking his head and shoving another door open.

They hurried on through, rapidly approaching the bottom of a tower with a spiraling staircase wrapping around it. A dingy white and pink animatronic missing her mouth lumbered out of the darkness and Gregory shot the laser into her eyes, stunning her long enough to let him run by her and up the stairs. Vincent stared at her in shock before hurrying after Gregory. Was that Chica? Why did she look so badly mangled?

Despite how fast they had run to get away from Vanny, the buzzing seemed to still be approaching them from behind at a steady pace. Gregory shoved open the gate at the top of the tower. “This way! The office!” he shouted breathlessly, gesturing at Vincent for him to hurry up, holding the gate open. The dream guard rushed through, gripping the hand rail that was the only bit of safety for the catwalk suspended high above. He breathed hard, heart racing. Ven was getting too soft for this; maybe he should remind the twins to better take care of themselves, since his strength relied on Ven’s and sometimes Stephanie’s. And that just reminded him that eventually, like Mike Schmidt some years earlier, his reincarnations would eventually grow older and pass on. What would happen to him then? Should he pass with them or find a way to linger in the world since the Aftons didn’t seem to stop trying to cheat death?

Considering Gregory’s age and troubles, it was looking more like Vincent was going to have to call a spirits’ meeting to discuss preparing to reserve their Remnant and reincarnate to assist him and Vanessa.

“C’mon, old man, we’re almost done,” Gregory told him grimly, hurrying across the catwalk with no care as to potentially slipping and falling off.

“Hey, I’m not that old! And use the hand rail! This might be a dream but at least still practice safety!” Vincent yelled in annoyance, chasing after him with one hand hovering over the rail himself.

The door to the suspended office was open and Gregory was already inside, hovering at the doorway with a look of dread on his face. Vincent approached, shaking off the static of the buzzing as best he could and readjusting his hat to seat it more firmly on his head. All that running nearly blew it off and, with how this mindscape behaved, there was no certainty that his Remnant could retrieve it before leaving.

Okay, so what was in this office? He looked around cautiously, lifting a hand as his Remnant reached out and gently probed at his surroundings. There was an arcade machine with a blinking screen, Princess Quest 3, next to a mattress laying on the floor with a rumpled blanket and pillow resting on it. Empty pizza boxes and disposable drink cups littered the floor nearby, and the name Vanny was spray painted on the wall. The exit door had an out of order sign hanging on it, discouraging use of it to escape. And finally there was a security desk with a glowing green button resting in a case that looked like a Freddy head, next to that was a controller of some kind with another button.

The feelings attached here were cold, distant, fearful, and horrified, a mix of emotions that burned ice through Vincent’s Remnant and chilled his soul. Why this mix? What was the intent of this nightmare? The fear and horror radiated thickest around Gregory, rising as the buzzing slowly grew loud, approaching the limited safety of the office. Vincent looked outside the doorway at the catwalk, grimacing at the sight of Vanny skipping merrily along towards them, a pair of S.T.A.F.F. bots rolling along behind her in perfect obedience. He looked the other way and saw only a wall with a sealed vent that led into an illuminated prize room. Maybe it had been a way through at some point, but clearly not now. Inside the office, a button by the doorway under a green-lit meter caught his attention and he pressed it. As expected, the door slid down from above and closed off the room, leaving the window as the only way of looking outside.

“Doubt we’ll be safe in here for long. We don’t know how long the power will last,” Vincent said with an exasperated huff, “Gregory, what comes next? What do we do?”

Gregory didn’t reply, the boy just moving towards the desk to pick up the controller with trembling hands before turning to face the door. His face was pale, the light of the security button and exit sign cast green color over him, making him look far sicker. The fear and horror surrounding him compressed, sinking under the growing heaviness of cold and numbness. Vincent stared at him in confusion and rising alarm. Those feelings weren’t native to Gregory, but they were suppressing his actual feelings. Why? What was the intent behind that? What was the goal for forcing Gregory to suppress his fear?

Square specks of black and shining purple flickered over the controller briefly, spreading to the tips of Gregory’s fingers before retreating, as if testing its range. That didn’t look good. What was that? Vincent stepped towards the boy, hand raising to probe deeper into the Remnant that built the illusion. Gregory didn’t even seem to notice him, his focus entirely on the door as the dread remained on his face.

And then the door slid open.

“Wha-?” Vincent murmured, pivoting to stare at the now open door with wide eyes. How?! There should have been plenty of power to keep it sealed for much longer than this! His jaw clenched tightly, hands balling into fists as tension ran over him, his Remnant pulling inward and coiling for his use. How much of Ven’s serenity was he going to have to consume for this? The backlash was not going to be pretty.

Vanny stood in the entrance to the office, flanked by the S.T.A.F.F. bots she brought with her. Her pose and presence dominated the room, glowing eyes fixed on Gregory, yet she didn’t move any closer to him. It almost seemed like she was waiting for him to make the next move. Vincent looked between the two of them quickly, trying to figure out what was the angle. What was the goal here?

Wait… ‘she took control of the S.T.A.F.F. bots’…. A frigid chill cut through him as Vincent turned horrified eyes to Gregory and the controller in his hands. No. That couldn’t be the goal, could it?!

The dread on Gregory’s face remained even with his fear suppressed, his next words spoken clearly, emotionlessly, “Disassemble Vanny.” He pressed the button and the bots jerked in place before turning their heads to look at the now panicking rabbit woman holding up her hands in self-defense. Right there, in front of him, they were going to-?!

“No!” Vincent cried out, leaping forward to shove Vanny out of the way of the turned bots, back through the doorway so she would be out of the office. She stumbled, slumped against the hand rail, and the S.T.A.F.F. bots turned their gazes to him instead. He barely had a moment to realize the implication of that before one bot grabbed him bodily, holding him down against his thrashing and yelling. The other bot turned away to follow Vanny and continue carrying out the command. “Gregory! Gregory, stop that bot! Don’t let it kill her!” Vincent called out, struggling to pull free of the S.T.A.F.F. bot.

Gregory just stood frozen, eyes locked on the one encroaching on Vanny’s still form and ready to do to her what was done to Freddy. The cold and distant emotions pressed further onto him, his expression growing blank, and now Vincent caught on what was happening. This was a recurring nightmare. How many times had Gregory been forced to command the bots to kill Vanny, been forced to watch her be torn apart in front of him?

Been forced to wake up with imaginary blood on his hands?

“Gregory, listen to me, okay? You’ve already figured out this isn’t real, you know how the nightmare ends,” Vincent told him in as calm and even voice as he could, wincing at the mechanical fingers digging into his shoulder and arm to quiet him. The strain on his limbs was uncomfortable for now but he was sure they’d get more painful if he pressed on. “You don’t have to let the nightmare push your true feelings away. Even if it hurts, even if it’s scary, those are your feelings, your true self!” Yeah there it was, the grip tightening, the bot bending to press him to the floor in an attempt to crush him into silence. Vincent jerked one arm loose enough to shove the S.T.A.F.F. bot’s head back in retaliation. “This is your world, Gregory! You can change the way the nightmare ends!” he yelled, “That strength is in you; don’t let Afton steal that away!”

The boy didn’t seem to react at first, just stared until the S.T.A.F.F. bot’s hands wrapped around Vanny’s head before seeming to snap back to himself, amber eyes blazing with fury. “Freddy! Get ‘em!” he shouted and thunderous stomping filled the air. Glamrock Freddy charged across the catwalk and body-slammed the S.T.A.F.F. bot, crushing it against the wall to the prize room. While Freddy dealt with that, Gregory picked up his toy laser gun and fired it at the S.T.A.F.F. bot holding Vincent down, sending it into a panic and allowing him to slip free and kick it aside. It flailed and then went still, eyes flickering off from deactivation.

Freddy stepped into the office with Vanny, tossing her onto the floor before sitting down beside her and throwing his legs over her back, effectively pinning her down with little harm.

And just like that, the nightmare was altered. Gregory gripped the laser gun in his hands, shaky breathing done in a self-enforced rhythm. Vincent picked himself up, wincing at the aches and pains that meant Ven’s body was sure to be sporting bruises. He made his way over to Gregory and knelt by him, slowly reaching out to carefully pull the toy from his hands.

“Do you feel like a hug would help?” he asked quietly. Gregory swallowed, eyes trained on the floor. Eventually he shook his head and Vincent nodded, simply resting by him. “You did good in taking control of the nightmare. We can pull it apart and find the truth underneath whenever you’re ready,” he added.

He didn’t voice his suspicions on why the nightmare was built this way. That would be for explaining to Vanessa. He absently let his fingers rub gently against the back of his wounded hand, trying to soothe the burn from the cloud of spite from earlier. Beside him, Gregory’s breathing began calming to a more regular pattern, the tension wrapped around him fading in Vincent’s aura of peace and tranquility.

“You knew I was going to kill her,” Gregory said suddenly, his voice toneless, “Bet you know why the nightmare was making me do it.” Vincent winced, humming noncommittally, and Gregory shot him a glare. “I’m a kid, yeah. I don’t know stuff but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” he growled, “For all I know, we did actually kill her down in that weird underground pizzeria but I didn’t see a body. So why make me do it here and watch?”

“I have a theory, but I really think it’s better to let Vanessa-,” Vincent began cautiously.

“It’s my nightmare! Tell me!” Gregory demanded, stamping a foot in frustration. The office walls flickered in response to his anger, grime appearing for a moment before vanishing.

“Haa, just to let you know, I really am against this for your own sake,” Vincent replied with an exasperated sigh, shoulders dropping in a slump, “but fine.” He gestured aimlessly at the doorway where Vanny was likely to have been ripped apart by the S.T.A.F.F. bots, “The nightmare ended the same way for you the past few nights, with you ordering Vanny to be killed and watching her die. The implanted artificial Remnant, the mix of code and emotions shoved into you somehow, was set up to make you feel desensitized to it over time.” He swallowed, stomach churning from the sick realization again as he folded his arms over his chest. “I think… I think it was trying to groom you into getting used to murdering someone, to detach yourself from feeling anything about ordering robots to kill someone,” he murmured, “I just… don’t know why the one who did this to you wanted you to learn how to kill. Didn’t they take Panther to have him do the killing for the Afton Family?”

“Sydney was supposed to be Vanessa’s bodyguard, that Afton lady said so,” Gregory grumbled, walking over to the mattress and flopping down to sit on it, elbows on his knees and chin resting in his hands, a sour look on his face. “His job was to look after her so she’d be all pretty for whoever was gonna take over her body and then he’d do any killin’ of stuff for her. Guess whoever was gonna take over my body was fine with killing people themselves and didn’t want me fighting against it.”

“What the hell was going on in there? We don’t even have access to the data in that system anymore,” Vincent sighed and gave Gregory a wary look, “And you’re surprisingly insightful about this.” The boy raised an eyebrow at him, nonplussed.

“Like I said, I don’t know stuff, but I’m not stupid,” he retorted, then went silent, glaring at his shoes hard for a bit before looking back up at him. “Thanks, though, for helping me stop it and change the ending. I… I really didn’t want to see her die again, even if she was out to get me the whole time I was in the Pizzaplex. Busting animatronics is one thing, actual people is another.”

“All I did was remind you that you can influence the path your dreams take. You did the rest yourself with your own strength,” Vincent told him with a wry grin, “Now to uproot the nightmare’s source, we’ll have to see the truth it was hiding. Are you ready?”

“If I say no, can we ignore all this and just move on with our lives?” Gregory asked. Vincent shook his head. “Eh, was worth a shot,” the boy sighed tiredly, “Fuck my life. Let’s get this over with, I guess. Freddy promised he’d make me one of his pizzas when we get home.”

The time to rest was helpful. Even though it wasn’t long enough to heal much of the damage he took, his Remnant had replenished and Vincent carefully stretched the calming emotion out. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on gently pulling up the layers of cold and numbness without letting the emotion leech into his Remnant. Flickers of irritation cut through, swift but sharp, slicing away at the nightmare energy and making it easier for him to pry them loose and dispel them. That wasn’t his, but it was helpful so Vincent didn’t try prodding at it in case the attempt scattered the assistance.

“Gregory, I appreciate the help, but don’t risk your Remnant at this point, okay?” he muttered, focusing on the last few tendrils of black and purple holding down the true memory.

“I’m not even doing anything!” the boy huffed, pacing around him in anxiety that made the air hum, “Are you done yet? The office is melting and it looks like that melted plastic cheese sauce crap they put on the popcorn in the Daycare Theatre.”

The specks of black and purple stung as Vincent pried them up and snapped them out of existence. Sheer malevolence and madness condensed in the bits of code and artificial Remnant left scars in Gregory’s mind. He soothed them over as best he could, wondering how he could heal this. Threads of pale blue stitched over the gashes in Gregory’s psyche and Vincent watched in curious fascination as they wove themselves into patches that filled in the Afton-inflicted wounds. He gently tested the patches with his own Remnant, searching for what emotions made up the energy.

Huh, there was a bit of determination but he couldn’t feel anything else. Whatever this was, much of the emotions were securely guarded against even his skill at detection. Was this really Gregory’s Remnant? How did this kid develop Remnant that could shield against even him?

With nothing else he could do here, Vincent withdrew his Remnant and blinked his eyes in surprise as a pair of hazy figures materialized nearby, standing in front of a recreation of the Pizzaplex main entrance, recreations of Gregory and Glamrock Freddy. Was this the memory Gregory had talked about, where Freddy had urged him to leave and was going to take Meera’s knife to wherever the Remnant spirit bound to it wanted to go?

“So, you’ll keep following the instructions I left in your memory,” hazy Gregory told hazy Freddy, “and make sure no one suspects I’ve escaped. I’ll let the cops know about Vanny so they can investigate and stop those disappearances.” The Freddy looking down at Gregory didn’t seem like the one lived with him now; this one didn’t respond to the boy’s words, didn’t radiate that same sort of spirit, lacked the Remnant.

Freddy’s head suddenly jerked up into a twitch fit and Gregory stepped back in alarm. The animatronic reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him in place despite his shouts and struggles. From behind one of the advertising displays a blonde woman dressed in the security guard uniform of the Pizzaplex stepped out, a smile on her shadowed face. She drew closer, hips swaying as she approached the struggling boy.

“You’ve been very naughty, GGY, trying to escape containment again,” the woman purred, tilting her head so her ponytail swished around her, “You’ve been messing with this Freddy’s programming. Loathe as I am to put the other one into duty, the prototype is too vulnerable to you. Guess I’ll have to spend time locking down these memories instead of scrubbing them. Dr. Afton needs your skills preserved so he can make use of them to supplement his memories once he’s ready for transfer.”

She bent, a device in her hands that buzzed as it got close to Gregory and then the memory collapsed like mist burning away in sunlight.

“Wh-what was that?” Vincent breathed in horror, “Was that… was that Vanessa?” But the way she moved, the way she spoke, it was nothing like the woman that had brought Gregory in to the apartment!

“That was the Afton lady. She just looks a lot like Vanessa, which is why I didn’t trust her for so long,” Gregory corrected quietly, walking up to him and squinting at the black field that remained after the memory fell apart. “How many escape attempts are we up to now?”

“This is… your third one,” Vincent replied, still trying to process what he’d seen and heard. If that was Elizabeth Afton, why did she look so much like Vanessa? “How many escape attempts did you make before… before us?” he asked, looking aside at the boy scowling faintly at the black.

“Can’t remember. I thought she was erasing my memories, but I guess she only did it to some and then locked up the others behind the nightmares so I wouldn’t try and get to them,” Gregory complained, “This is so stupid! Why me?! I’m just a kid! They had Sydney; why didn’t they try and put that guy she was talking about in his body?!” He stomped his foot a few times in frustration and then yelled at the top of his lungs.

The black field flickered as a distant shrill shriek answered, faint but chilling, and then everything flashed blinding white. Vincent flinched and shook his head, blinking spots from his eyes, his vision fading back in.

Once more the Pizzaplex was back in place, brightly lit in neon glows as the Fazband performed on the stage in the atrium. He found himself seated at one of the long dining tables on the atrium floor, Gregory sitting beside him in a tired slump. Was that all they could do? There were likely still wounds to be healed, memories of that failed escape to bring to the surface, questions left unanswered. But the boy looked exhausted and pressing any further into the matter would just get Vincent forcibly ejected from Gregory’s mind.

“Will you be alright for now? Do you want to continue finding the memories of this night once you’ve recovered?” he asked cautiously. Much as he didn’t like leaving the job incomplete, he couldn’t go any further without Gregory to guide him to where the damage was done.

“Maybe another time. I just want to eat some pizza and finally get some sleep,” Gregory sighed, one hand buried in his hair as he gripped at it, palm pressed to his forehead, “My head is killing me.”

“Then I guess I’ve done all I can for you for now,” Vincent said, reclining in his chair, “I’ll tell Vanessa about what happened here and to bring you by for another session once you’ve rested. Maybe we can use some of the information we learned here to search for what happened to you and Vanessa once we can get access to the Pizzaplex servers somehow.”

“And what? What’s that gonna do for us?” Gregory grumbled, “It’s not gonna bring back my memories before I ended up in the Pizzaplex. It’s not gonna fix what they did to my Remnant, to me and my… everything. I’m still gonna be a fucked up mess of a kid.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Vincent countered, but even he was aware of how weak it sounded. For all that he and the other spirits had experience with dealing with Remnant and malevolent ghosts and haunted things, restoring Remnant that had been destroyed or stripped of the memories and emotions that made it up was still far beyond them. His thoughts drifted to Digital Lucian, who had the gaps of his wrecked Remnant filled in with code from Circus Baby’s software and that shifted his identity away from how he once was. It caused him to constantly question if he was even ‘Lucian’ anymore despite his family assuring him he was more deserving of the name than the Master File, who willingly scrubbed the emotions from himself that tied him to their past in favor of ‘perfection’.

What must Gregory be thinking about himself, with his awareness that he’d tried repeatedly to escape the Pizzaplex, to warn the outside world, only to fail and have more of himself stripped or sealed away to weaken his soul and identity?

“I think,” Gregory began slowly, startling Vincent out of his musing as the laser show began around the Fazband on stage. Thick fog still roiled around the stage and swirled in eddies close to the floor. “I think, even if I’m still messed up in the head, maybe it’s okay? Cuz I still have Freddy and Vanessa, and they still care about me even with all,” he gestured aimlessly around himself before folding his arms down onto the table, “so I dunno. Maybe I don’t have to care about the memories, just make the nightmares stop and the fake ones go away and I can worry more about making and keeping new memories.”

“Optimism is good. Memories are one thing, but you have family and friends, so you’ll be alright over time,” Vincent agreed with a grin, “I’ll see you again soon, okay?” Gregory nodded, his attention now on the Fazband as a pizza and drinks suddenly appeared on the table for him to enjoy. With the clear dismissal, Vincent drew his Remnant within himself and reached for Ven, carefully pulling himself free of the boy’s mindscape.

Back in the world of the living, Ven remained dormant to let him finish the session. Vincent could feel the same aches and pains as he did in the mindscape. The injuries definitely passed over. He lifted his left hand and winced at the bandaging wrapped around it; the artist would not be able to do any work until it healed. But, how did it get treated?

“Sorry, I saw you were flinching and then your hand had a burn appear on it so I bandaged it with some cooling cream,” Vanessa explained from her place on the sofa near Gregory, the boy sleeping more easily now. She smiled wryly, patting her purse, “Between Gregory and Sydney’s antics, I just carry a few first aid supplies around to treat what we can.”

“Thank you,” Vincent murmured, carefully running fingers over his treated hand. This would definitely help it heal more easily. “So, here’s what we found for his nightmare….”

Explaining and describing everything he’d seen and experienced and mended took a while. Vanessa took notes as he spoke, likely writing up questions to ask after so she wouldn’t interrupt him or forget herself. By the time Vincent was done recalling everything, his mouth was dry and he wished he’d thought to have drinks on hand to hydrate with. Vanessa just reached into her purse again and brought out a juice box, passing to him.

“Also just in case,” she laughed as he thanked her for the drink. She sat back with her notepad, looking over her writing, waiting as he finished and let his throat recover. He set the juice box down on the coffee table as a signal he was ready. “The black and purple specks you saw, it’s a lot like what I could see in myself and in… that place my mind had been nearly locked in,” Vanessa told him, looking off in the distance as she thought about it. “It’s something from Glitchtrap, the controller of the Pizzaplex network. That some of that code was in Gregory even after his implant shorted out and cut him from the network….” A worried look passed over her face, “That makes what happened with me and Sydney that day make more sense. Think you could pull up leftovers like that from my mind too?”

“In a few days, sure. I need to give Ven’s body time to recover but I can schedule you a session for, say, next week? Do you have any free time then?” Vincent offered.

“I’ll call once I check with the household rotation,” Vanessa replied and went back to her notes, “The nightmare was to force Gregory to become desensitized to killing. That’s awful….” She lifted a hand to her mouth, a sickly expression passing over her. “All of us, we were all being used to one day kill others… for what? More Remnant?”

“Possibly,” Vincent murmured, folding his arms over his chest and wincing a little at the twinge in his muscles, “Depending on who was going to be possessing you, there could have been damage to the Remnant for those spirits. Killing others in specific ways or places would allow those spirits to absorb that Remnant into themselves and basically feed on the emotions and memories to repair themselves.” He looked over at the sleeping boy, “Gregory has an incredibly strong will. Even though he had been made to do that repeatedly in the nightmare, he still held on to his humanity and reasserted his desire to not cause even Vanny’s death. He might have wanted her to hurt, like any upset child would, but he surprisingly is aware enough to know that death is just too far and unwanted.” He smiled over at Vanessa, “You should be proud of him, and of yourself too, for not falling into that hole Elizabeth tried to force you both into.”

“As for the fake me you saw in the memory, that was a shock to me when I first saw her, too,” she added, a puzzled frown on her face, “It’s so strange. How was she able to look so much like me? Are we related? I don’t remember anything, so I don’t know. But whoever she was, that person is gone. That’s Elizabeth Afton now, and she was the one who buried Gregory’s memory and gave him this nightmare of killing her over and over. What a twisted woman.”

“Wait, are you implying that Vanny is Elizabeth Afton?” Vincent asked in alarm. Vanessa nodded. “So she used a body that looks like you and an alias that uses your name… why?!”

“Probably to make sure Gregory didn’t trust me to help him,” she replied dully, “Which worked up until that night all of you guys showed up and exposed what was going on to him and me.”

They talked a bit longer about the dispelling Vincent had done and the limited mending that took place after until Gregory stirred and yawned, bringing their conversation to a close. Vincent showed them both to the door as they thanked him for his time and services. He blinked in surprise at the small roll of cash Vanessa pressed into his hand.

“You took time to help Gregory freely a few times already, so I hope this covers all the sessions so far as well as today’s,” she told him with a grin, “You’re a friend, yeah, but you’re still a professional of a sort and it wouldn’t fly with me to not compensate you for your skills.”

“C’mon, Vanessa, Freddy’s gonna make pizza and I don’t wanna be too tired to eat it!” Gregory whined.

They said their goodbyes and then headed off for home, leaving Vincent to close up and head back to the living room to write out a note of explanation of all that happened, slipping the money into a pocket for Ven to retrieve after. With that done, he tended to the aches and pains by searching out a mild painkiller to take and reclining in the armchair to try relaxing enough to recede and let Ven return.

There were still so many questions and mysteries around Gregory. All he could do is keep supporting and assisting wherever he could while the others made the moves to try and get back into the Pizzaplex and find whatever information they could to discover what happened to Vanessa and Gregory or who they were before their identities and memories were destroyed. What bothered him most was something Elizabeth had said in that memory.

Dr. Afton needed Gregory to supplement his memories. Did she mean William Afton? The same malevolent ghost that had haunted the wreckage of Springtrap after the Fazbear Frights fire? How was he still existing when FuriRosa had sworn that she had torn his Remnant apart during the fire of Meera’s old pizzeria?

The door opened again as he was circling his thoughts in a loop and Vincent looked up to see Damian enter the room, clutching a white paper bag in one hand. Ah, he got his medicine then. “Where’s Steph?” he asked, closing his eyes nearly shut as Damien flopped onto the couch with a happy sigh.

“She said she was gonna go see what Meera was up to at Circus Baby’s after dropping me off. Need to talk to Jonathan?” he returned, putting his feet up on the coffee table and ignoring the disapproving look aimed his way.

“I gained some info so yes, please. He can fill you in after,” Vincent told him and tilted his head at Damien’s little frown in response, “Something the matter?”

“Did… something happen here?” the former Fazbear’s Fright guard asked cautiously, rubbing his right hand a little and gripping his wrist, “I’m getting a little bit of a reaction.”

“Vanessa and Gregory came by, I’m still removing traces of Afton infection from the boy,” Vincent replied, gesturing at the couch Damien rested on, “It was a pretty bad nightmare this time.”

“Everything to do with that deranged hack is ‘pretty bad’,” Damien scoffed, throwing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes to sink into himself, “I’ll see Ven later then, have fun with your talk.”

Vincent blinked his eyes fully open again as he sensed the presence of his partner settle into place. “Hey, Jonathan,” he greeted warmly, leaning on the arm of his chair with a wry grin as now-green eyes turned to focus on him intently, “we might need to move up the timetable on breaking back into the Pizzaplex and getting access to the servers in there. We might not have gotten rid of William as completely as we thought….”

#fnaf fanfiction #fnaf au #fnaf gregory #fnaf vanny #vincent heliotrope #fnaf vanessa #parlourverse au #vanny ending #damien woods

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noffy96 · 5 months

Text

MXES/Eclipse

So I was following along this comic 'Obsolete' by IceTigerKitten on twitter.

And when that ended we got this cute ship out of it. So i decided to little story, set right after the end the comic, a cute little what if so to speak.

It is so fun seing art for this ship on twitter, i just had to do this. so enjoy. But also check out the orinal comic first HERE!

A moment to rest

Rating: General Audiances

Word count: 1,960

Chapter 1/1 Complete

Summary:

“Still wish you could…they’d absolutely love you “

MXES turned his face to the side, and he was sure he saw a small flush appear.

The sight made him smile and it made him determined to overwhelm him with all the compliments he deserved in the future.

“I would love to talk to them properly someday”

Eclipse just needs a moment. To just be. He is been running from one place to the next ever since he got booted back up. And now it's his turn to get some much-needed comfort.

Note: Based on / set in. IceTigersKitten's comic Obsolete on twitter, is basically set right after. So might not make sense if you haven't read that comic

--link here to AO3--

or read below the read more line

Lightly kicking his legs eclipse looked down over the edge he had sat himself with a smile. The Glamrocks had managed to get Bonnie's body comfortably resting against the pillows and DJ’s arm. Everyone slowly finding a way to lie down and snuggle together for a nap.

It had been….a long day. A very long day indeed. He was very happy they had been found. For now, Vanessa and Gregory were bringing Cassie to safety. And they all stay another night in the Pizzaplex. They had some generators to charge them overnight and everyone was tired.

Chica looked up at him and waved at him to join. He smiled back gently at her. Signing back that he’d join in a bit. But Sun and Moon were still talking and didn't wanna interrupt them.

She nodded back and joined the others and the growing cuddle pile. Helping proto settle down, between one of DJ’s hands and Monty. Who was making sure that none of the micros that had gotten out of proto to stretch their little legs would get crushed.

He sighed. Moon and Sun had actually stopped talking a while ago. It had been needed. The reboot had fixed them, but they had barely time to talk about any of it. Except that of course they both had missed each other so very much.

He heard bits and pieces of the conversation, as them being in his head he couldn't entirely tune them out. But he ignored them as best he could to be polite. This was a moment for them that was surely needed

But what he heard had made him ache in his chest. The loneliness Sun had felt. The way the virus had corrupted Moon's thinking. Being able to tell something had been wrong. But not strong enough to fight it.

The fights it had caused between them. Well both knowing it was the virus, the insults and actions taken had still cut deep

Tears had been shed, kissed away along with long hugs and reassurances. He occasionally hugged themselves to let all of them know they were okay now. And he felt the sentiment returned

And now both of them were soundly asleep. Laying on either side of him. The pixels of their faces dug into his hips. Their hands clasped together across his lap. And the other holding onto his back. His own hands rested on where their shoulders would be.

It was a cute sight, and he hadn't felt this calm In all the hours he had been awake. And he just needed a moment to just be.

It felt like he was thinking of a million things and nothing all at once. The thoughts glided through his mind without grasping them. As he stared through a gap in the ceiling into the night sky. Playing the words of wonder the duo holding him had uttered at first seeing them. It was truly a beautiful sight.

After their talk, before they fell asleep, the celestial duo had asked him a bit more about MXES. The one that had warned them Cassie was in danger. And he had told them about his friend.

They both had gotten a teasing glint in their eyes. That made him suspicious. But it had also become clear no one else but him was able to see his friend.

And that thought made him upset. He wished that when everyone had rested. He could at least introduce them. But that seemed almost impossible now

He thought that MXES would need time to recharge as well. So he was surprised when he appeared in front of him once more.

“MXES..”

The giant bunny glitch stared at one of the generators seemingly giving it a small nod of approval before turning back to face him

“You look comfy”

He beamed up. Gently increasing his grip on the two in his grasp.

“I am. I don't think I have been hugged this long….ever really”

His friend gave a smile back. Looking at the pile of animatronics nesting below that were one by one slowly powering down.

“Everyone else all right?”

He nodded,

“As right as they can be”

“And you?”

He tilted his head to the side at the question.

“You seemed sad before I appeared “

He could feel the heat rising to his cheeks slowly. Looking down at the pixelated forms of Sun and Moon gently tracing over their arms. Both of them trying to come closer.

“I wanted and try and introduce you all properly…but…it seems they can’t…or anyone here…can hear you”

MXES nodded. An odd expression came over his face.

“Part of the design…you’re special”

He felt the heat rising.

“Still wish you could…they’d absolutely love you “

MXES turned his face to the side, and he was sure he saw a small flush appear.

The sight made him smile and it made him determined to overwhelm him with all the compliments he deserved in the future.

“I would love to talk to them properly someday”

He beamed up at his friend. Already feeling a bit calmer. He hesitated for a moment. Before letting go of his partners’s shoulders. And reaching toward the giant bunny.

Gently coaxing him back to face him by the cheek. Before leaning forward and pressing a short kiss against his nose.

He pulled back gently stroking the base of one ear.

“As thanks for earlier”

The little face boop from earlier was one of the sweetest interactions he had ever had. And he hoped this small kiss was bringing the same kind of happiness to the giant bunny.

MXES's hands were hovering beside them. Clearly startles by his actions. But those wide eyes gentled and the giant bunny glitch leaned closer. And pressed a soft kiss on his forehead. Just below the rim of his head.

“It's appreciated, but you should go rest little spark”

He let out a flustered giggle. He tried to suppress it so as not to wake the other two still in his lap. As he looked away

“I…I know”

One of MXES's hands came to his chin pulling it back up to face him

“What's….wrong?”

The flush on his face grew and he averted his eyes. Leaning back a little. He had a feeling his emotions had been clear as day, another reason why he hadn't gone down just yet.

“...I…it’s…”

He ducked his head further. It felt very silly, to worry about this now. After everything, he couldn't help it. The thought had entered his mind when the talk about resting started and it wasn't leaving him alone.

The giant hand moved to gently rub at one of his rays and it made the pleasant tingle in his chest increase.

“...what if I don't wake back up…”

It was barely more than a whisper. And he couldn't meet MXES eyes. Staring down at his two other halfs

It had been so long since his last activation. Their internal clock had broken long ago. But he was sure it was years, he could see Sun’s logs continue on for years since the last day he was active.

And what if he went to sleep and it be decades later again? He didn't wanna lose this. He had made promises, he wanted to keep Sun and Moon safe after everything.

They had the Mimic to find as well before it tried to hurt someone else! And the Glamrocks seemed nice. He would like to get to know them more. Would love to make more friends

But what if today was all he got? The reset had worked…but would it keep him around?

MXES had let him go and he curled further In himself. Then one of those warm hands pulled him back, his friend having moved behind him, into the other's larger chest. Being slowly filled with the unexpected comfort of being held. Sun and Moon doing it inside their head was one thing. But he was trying to think of a time he had actually ever been held like this and came up empty.

“They aren't gonna let you go that easily, they've got you. You have nothing to fear. And if you are gonna be there for me. I'll be there for you as well. It's okay to be scared…but don't be alone. They…everyone is here for you”

He nodded, raising a trembling hand over the hand holding him. Tipping his head back to find MXES gaze. He whispered softly.

“Thank you”

They sat there for several moments. Just breathing gently. With some gentle words being whispered to him every now and then. He whispered compliments back. Made sure to gently pay attention to the two in his lap as well. Every time he felt them twitch in their sleep

Suddenly he saw a large hand appear before him. He snapped out of his daze looking at DJ.

“You coming little comet? you should get tucked in as well. “

“Oh. Sorry DJ, yes. Just…give me a sec”

He glanced behind him apologetically. And MXES let him go with a gentle press of his nose against his cheek.

And he curled his arms around the pixelated forms of his partners lifting up with him. Both of them let out sweet little grunts and mrrps as they blinked awake.

“Sorry you two, just getting ready for bed myself. “

He hopped onto DJ’s hand and was lowered down. Chica was still up and sat up from where she was in Roxy's lap who was already out. Pulling him into the cuddle pile before he could protest, a blanket was thrown over him trapping him as was held against her and Roxy's side.

He glanced over to the others. Monty had moved to lie on Bonnie's chest, with one of the cleanbots that held Bonnie's consciousness trapped in his hold. Freddy was gently muttering things to his prototype. And complementing all the micros for helping him out. On their other side.

Moon had shifted his pixelated form to lie more across his chest now. While Sun had cuddled fully into his free side holding onto them both their hands finding each other again. While their other hand was gently tracing over his body trying to lull him into rest.

MXES was hovering off to the side again. And seeing him apart from everyone else made his chest feel cold. So he reached out a hand. The giant bunny grabbed it with no hesitation and he used it to pull him down landing close to Moon.

The bunny's eyes were wide, and before he could protest he mouthed at him.

“Please stay”

He got a short nod as MXES shifted to find a comfortable spot, so as not to phase through Moon, despite neither being able to see each other. DJ fully warped his arms around the group creating a barrier no one could pass.

He plucked in the cable handed to him by Chica and settled down. Eyes dropping slowly

“Go get some rest, sweet cheeks. You and the Bois certainly earned it after everything you’ve done for us”

He gave a light nod

“Thank you”

There was a soft nuzzle against his head. But he could hardly keep his eyes open. A soft melody started from his chest. Moon music box, it was missing a few notes. But the sound was comforting. And as he slowly started drifting off into rest mode.

He swore he could hear Sun say

“We've got you”

Followed by Moon.

“You've got nothing to fear”

A second later felt like MXES was stroking his rays again. Along with his staticy voice

“Told you, rest now”

It would be alright…they all would be

#fnaf #fnaf eclipse #fnaf mxes #eclipse/mxes #digitaleclipse #digtaleclipse ship #fnaf sun #fnaf sun/moon #fnaf daycare attended #fnaf security breach

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