#suicide attempt cw
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(text from this post, fic is little kid with a big death wish by @remedyturtles)
i'm genuinely not sure where to start here - ig first of all this fic is absolutely incredible and if you somehow haven't read it yet you absolutely should!
okay. man. rem, this fic means so so much to me and i'm so glad i got to be here for it. i think this is one of those fics that'll stick with me years down the line even if one day i'm not into tmnt anymore, one i'll come back to over and over again
your writing has touched so so many people myself very much included, and i just. want to thank you so much for writing this fic and thank you for sharing it. you're an amazing writer and an amazing person and i'm lucky to know you. i can't wait to see what you do next
#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rise of the tmnt#tmnt#little kid with a big death wish#my art#forgor all my tags its ok ill come back later <3 anyway#god theres legit so so so much more i wanted to say but i cant get. the words right augh#i kinda tried to put some of it in the comic though so. yeah. the emotions anyway#idk idk i just have a Lot of feelings abt this fic and how real it feels and just . man. it hits so so hard /pos#just... the fact that dw leo has been through everything he has and is capable of recovery and living. even if he doesnt want to live just#yet. hes getting there. makes me feel like i can too as cheesy as that sounds lajfd;lajlfkl#anyway ive rambled enough i spent ten (10) full days on this comic i am setting it loose into the world. be free#suicide attempt cw#dissociation cw#<- just to be safe. ask to tag if theres anything else lafj;dljsafkl
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I'm going to reply to you here as to not spoil the poll but Moomintroll was considered an orphan in the first comic (Moomin and the Brigands) and the start of the second comic (Moomin and Family Life)!
The context is that he was separated from his parents since very early childhood (it's implied he wandered off through a fence gate) and didn't remember his parents until their incidental reunion.
Of course, this backstory was never brought up again as far as I know/remember. Moominpappa tends to take up the majority of the backstory currency in the comics.
(The... The comics are an utterly different timeline from the books, just to clarify.)
#moominvalley#moomin#moomins#moominpappa#moominmamma#moomintroll#reply#moomin comics#moomin and family life#suicide attempt cw
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Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox/Quinlan Vos
Characters: CC-1010 | Fox, Quinlan Vos, Original Clone Character(s)
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, POV CC-1010 | Fox, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt in the form of attempting to 1v2 space panthers (mentioned), Medical Procedures, Punctured Lungs Are No Joke, CC-1010 | Fox Whump, Author has an uncomfortable amount of experience with being in Quinlan's shoes, Heavy Angst, Self-Harm
Series: Part 6 of FoxQuin Week 2024, Part 2 of A Study In Scarlet
Summary:
Slash is suspiciously silent, but Fox doesn't bother to open his eyes to see why. "He's right behind me, isn't he?" He snarks, falling back on holofilm quotes to desperately try and stop himself from drowning his CMO in a flood of every emotion Fox has ever felt.
"Actually, he's right in front of you."
#commander fox#quinlan vos#foxquinweek2024#quinfox#foxquin#fanfiction#suicide attempt cw#suicidal ideation cw#kiki writes
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can‘t stop thinking about how alby went out to look for newt when he wasn’t back in time despite him being the second in command and knowing damn well it was against the rules, knowing damn well why they made those rules in the first place.
this gets even more poetically heart wrenching when you think about the fact that alby was probably among those who came up with these rules in the first place—heck, this could haven been one he came up with, for all we know.
because he knew that every glader‘s life was worth the same, that they needed to protect the few of them that there were in the first place. but well, that all went out the window when it was newt who didn’t show up, didn’t it… when it was newt he had the prospect of losing.
and in that moment, in the moment alby decided to sneak out and go look for newt, he was selfish. he needed to find newt, to at least try and find newt, because he didn’t want to be in the glade without him. he weighed his options and then opted for the one no good leader should opt for. the one where he was potentially causing the community he helped build severe loss, and even potential instability and consequent danger; 1) because his skill as second in command was needed and, more importantly, 2) if their leader saw fit to ignore rules, what was to stop a regular glader from doing the same?
so like. i just think a lot about how much exactly alby risked by going after newt. and i think you should, too.
#suicide attempt#suicide attempt cw#i ALSO think a lot about going after newt probably made alby feel very VERY guilty in the wrong one#because he wasn’t protecting the gladers under him in that moment#just newt.#so like… i kinda think alby sacrificing himself to the grievers during the escape was informed by this too#yk he nearly failed them once; he wasn’t gonna fail them again#maze runner#tmr#the maze runner#tmr alby#nalby#tmr newt#txt#my headcanons
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“Screech how many God of War fics are you writing at once” SHHHHH shhh shhh don’t worry about it, shhhh.
Also I’d say “Sindri enjoyers come get y’all juice” but this is uhhhhh sad. It gets better but it’s sad right now. Please mind the content warnings. AO3 link will be in the usual reblog!
the balance of life is in the ripe and ruin: part 1/3
content warnings: depictions of OCD including anxiety spirals and cleaning as a compulsion; grief due to family loss; suicidal thoughts/attempt; major spoilers for ragnarok.
.
He started washing again within a week of Ragnarök.
At first, it hadn’t mattered to him if he washed or not. From the second he slammed that hammer down, nothing had mattered. Brok was gone. Nothing was going to bring him back. What did it matter if the beasties finally got him? If his forge exploded, if anyone who’d ever cared about him ended up hating him? What did it matter?
That apathy finally cracked when he went back to the house. There was dust on every surface. Someone had tried to clean up the blood, but there were still dark stains in the floor. Sindri dug out his brush and started scrubbing.
And kept scrubbing.
And scrubbing.
The stains wouldn’t come out.
.
The worst part was everyone crawling out of stone to apologize for his loss. As if they’d given a shit before. As if they hadn’t turned their backs on Brok when Sindri brought him back. It was a miracle he managed to avoid punching someone before he gave up on social contact. He spent his time either out in the wilderness or back at the house, entirely alone.
The others were avoiding him. Sindri noticed signs that they had stopped by–things being tidied up, items that hadn’t belonged to Brok or Sindri slowly being moved out–but they never came by when he was there.
At least they were able to give them that much.
He picked at projects that didn’t go anywhere. He scrubbed the floor. Sometimes he’d spend half the day in bed, his thoughts less thoughts and more a white out storm of pain. He scrubbed the floor until the seal came off. He was sure he could still smell the blood.
A thought took root. Maybe that blood was the last part of Brok’s soul. Maybe if he just got it cleaned, it would free that part. Then maybe Sindri could get him back, or at least set him free. He could be in the light with Faye and their ancestors, not just…gone.
Sindri scrubbed until his hands were raw.
He could still smell the blood.
.
The long winter began to thaw.
It felt like an insult.
There was peace in the realms, or so everyone said. The surviving Aesir were playing nice, mortals were resettling into Midgard as the Desolation corrected itself, no more Hel Walkers. Everything was righting itself.
Almost everything.
How could he enjoy any of it when it had been bought with Brok’s blood?
The memories of that day stabbed at his mind like daggers. If it wasn’t those memories, it was the thoughts. Brok’s soul is in the floor. You have to get it out. He’s lost, he’s alone, he won’t rest until you do this. He’s in the floor. You have to get him out.
It’s your fault. Make it right.
The house smelled like soap and damp wood.
As the rest of the world healed, he was inside, scrubbing.
.
Of course, he was at it again when someone finally came by.
“Sindri? Honey, it’s Lúnda. You all right?”
The sound of the door creaking open made Sindri grit his teeth. Damn it, he thought he’d locked that. “Go away,” he snapped. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the harsh sound of the bristles against wood. “I’m busy.”
Lúnda didn’t go away. Of course not. Sindri heard the door open wider. “I was just stopping by to…”
“Don’t step on the floors!” Sindri snapped.
“Okay, okay. Do you want me to leave my shoes at the door?”
“No, no, it’s not…” Why did his chest hurt? Why was she here?! “...I won’t be able to get him out if you grind him in more.”
“...the blood?”
“No! Brok! I have to…”
Damn it. Damn it, why had he said it aloud? Terror knotted up his guts, but he looked up anyway, finally meeting Lúnda’s eyes. She was Brok’s friend, one of the only ones he’d had. She’d have to understand, right? “I have to get him out,” Sindri repeated.
Lúnda stared at him. It wasn’t a look of understanding. Sindri knew that look well. Oh gods, that look said, he’s actually insane.
“...Sindri, Brok’s not here,” Lúnda said carefully. “You…you know that, right?”
Of course he did.
Of course he did.
Brok was gone. Sindri knew that. He was the one who had to live with that hole. And of course he knew Brok wasn’t in the floor. It made no fucking sense. But he couldn’t stop. If he stopped, those awful thoughts would come back, that terrifying conviction that he’d given up on his brother, abandoned his brother, that it was all his fault…
“Sindri?”
“Get out.”
“Honey, we’re worried about you.”
“I said get the fuck out!”
He saw a spark of fear in Lúnda’s eyes as she backed away and shut the door. That spark bled all his anger away, replacing it with shame. Guilt. It paralyzed him to the spot. The thoughts started swarming almost instantly. Bastard. Monster. How many more people are going to hurt, huh? You blame everyone else for what happened, but you know the truth.
Sindri picked back up the brush and started scrubbing.
It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.
His elbow hit the bucket, knocking it over. The water spilled out on the floor. It was dark from all the sealant, dirt, whatever he’d scrubbed free from the wood.
Dark like blood.
Sindri stared at the stain as it grew, spreading across the floor.
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
Your fault.
.
The beach hadn’t changed since last time.
Sindri stared out over the Lake of Souls. The light had stabilized as Fimbulwinter finally faded away. He felt like he should…hear something. Feel something. He was sure he had the day he’d come for his brother’s soul.
Today, though, there was nothing. Just the wind and the distant croaking of some creature. Not even the elves were fighting. It was quiet as the grave.
Quiet as the house and the forges without Brok there.
He’d stripped off all his armor, his gloves, his shoes. It was the closest to dirt he’d been in a while, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The pain was back–not as bad as it was on the days he couldn’t leave bed, but bad enough to send him here.
It felt inevitable, in a way.
He’s not in there, whispered his common sense.
I know. Sindri stood up and calmly dusted the sand off his pants. I’m not here for him.
That wasn’t entirely true. There was a part of him that still clung to the delusion that Brok was there. That all he had to do was jump in, swim and keep swimming until he could grab his brother’s soul and bring him home. But even if Brok wasn’t in there…
He waded into the water. Up to his knees. His waist. His chest.
He took one last breath and started swimming.
The water felt thicker this time. The remnants of all the souls that had died in Ragnarök still lingering, maybe. It sent a spark of hope flooding through him. Maybe that hope wasn’t delusional, maybe Brok was still in there, maybe, maybe, maybe…maybe if he just kept swimming.
Maybe.
He felt the hands on him as he swam, caressing his face, his arms, any exposed skin, beckoning him further downwards. He tried, he reached out, he searched desperately for that same sense of certainty that he felt the first time, the sense that had pulled him to his brother.
He tried.
But there was nothing there.
Just the darkness and a thousand grasping fingers dragging him under.
You failed him.
You failed.
It’s your -
.
“What are you doing here, Sin?”
Sindri sat up.
Golden sunlight flooded his vision, blinding him for a moment. When his vision finally cleared, he was…at one of his shops? The one in the foothills. It was peaceful, warm, just the rustling of wind through leaves and that voice.
“I missed you too, vinur minn, but it’s too soon for this.”
“...Faye?”
She was sitting as she always did, right on the ground, legs crossed, leaning against the counter. She looked the way she did when he’d first met her, the way she always did in his mind: wild red hair coming out of its braids, eyes bright from combat, green and gold clothing. But there was a calmness to her he didn’t remember from that day. It reminded him more of the last time they’d met. Faye the wife and mother, not Laufey the just.
Still his friend, either way.
“You’re here?” he breathed as he stepped closer.
“Of course I am. I’d never leave you.” She smiled, but her eyes were sad. “You’ve always had a part of me. One of the best parts, I think.” She held out her hand, like she always did; he took it, because of course he would. “You’ve got a part of him, too, you know. Even if he’s not here. You need to hold onto the both of us now.”
He knew in his gut what she was really saying. It just made him hold on tighter. “I can’t,” he said, the words swallowed up in a sob. “I can’t. I don’t know how.”
“You do. Hey. You do.” She squeezed his hand tightly. “There is more strength in that heart than you give yourself credit for. More people who still love you. It will hurt, but you can bear it until it stops. And I will not leave you. I promise.” The sunlight practically made her glow. “I’m sorry I never said goodbye.”
“Don’t.” Sindri shook his head. “You don’t have to apologize. Not to me, not for anything.” He met her eyes. They had never looked so blue. “Odin’s gone.”
“I know.”
“You won.”
“You won. Thank you.” Faye glanced away from him, up and over his head, her smile growing softer. He’d never seen her smile like that before. “Oh. Sæl elskan mín.”
“...What?”
“Don’t worry. Just breathe, all right? And tell the others that I-”
.
The water tasted green coming back up.
Algae, probably. Algae and who knew what else. His body rejected it all, leaving him gasping and shaking on the sand. “Breathe,” said a low, gruff voice. “Slowly.”
Kratos.
Fuck.
Sindri couldn’t look at him. Just seeing the vivid red tattoos out of the corner of his eye was bad enough. It felt like he’d been caught cleaning again, but worse. The shame, the dread, the fear, the…
“Can you hear me?”
Was he disappointed or relieved?
“Why did you pull me out?” Sindri asked.
Birdsong echoed over the lake, the normally soothing sound almost deafening. The longer Kratos didn’t reply, the more Sindri wanted to get up and jump back in, just to get away. Kratos moved carefully, going from kneeling to sitting, facing away from Sindri. “...I had a brother,” he said finally. “The gods took him from me, too. It took a long time for me to…stop blaming myself for what happened. You should have that chance.”
Of course he has a dead brother. Sindri almost wanted to laugh. That fucking god and all the fucking tragedy that surrounded him. How was he still standing? How did he do it? Because Sindri sure as shit didn’t know how to.
You do.
Her voice was still so clear. Her hand…
Sindri finally pushed himself up, resting on his knees, his hand flexing carefully. It still felt…not warm. Faintly cool, but not unpleasantly so.
Sorry. Frost giant thing.
“You do not have to speak to me,” Kratos said quietly. “I understand, you are angry. You have every right to be. But I am not leaving you here alone.”
That was what did it.
Sindri wondered if Freya had a moment like this: when all that carefully constructed hatred finally broke under the weight of reality. Sindri had been angry, so angry at Kratos and Atreus. He’d held onto that anger with both hands because it was one of the only things keeping him from snapping entirely. But he couldn’t hold onto it now. Not anymore. And as it bled away, it revealed what he’d known all along. The thing he’d been trying to fend back for weeks.
“...I killed him,” Sindri whispered. He’d dragged his brother out of that lake with a fourth of him missing. Odin, a random ogre or troll, natural death, anything could have taken Brok. It didn’t matter. It would always come to this.
And Sindri would always be the one who had dealt the first blow.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “Oh, gods, I killed him.”
The first sob felt like it ripped him in half. The pain blinded him to everything else, his entire world collapsing into itself. For what felt like an eternity, there was just him and that overwhelming pain.
Then a hand gripped his shoulder–carefully, but just tightly enough to pull the disparate parts back together. Other sensations followed. His clothes were soaking wet. The sand was really itchy against his exposed skin. His mouth still kind of tasted like lake water, which was awful. It was all fucking awful.
But the birds were still singing somewhere, too. And the sunlight still looked golden.
Sindri couldn’t stop crying. He didn’t bother trying. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t hold onto it anymore. The more he cried, the more the deep ache finally revealed itself. Not anger, not fear. Grief. A deep well of grief.
At least he could finally name it.
Kratos waited until Sindri had stopped crying before he stood. He was back seconds later with a water skin. “Do you have anything stronger?” SIndri asked hoarsely.
“Water first. You need it more.”
Fair. And the first few sips did feel pretty nice, he wouldn’t lie. Kratos sat back down again as Sindri drank carefully. He’d already thrown up once, and he really wasn’t looking to do that again. Oh, gross, I’m near the vomit. Moving away meant moving closer to Kratos, but he preferred that by a lot. “How’d you know I was here?” he asked as he passed the water skin back to Kratos.
“Lúnda said you were distressed. Talking about Brok. I thought…” Kratos stared back out over the water. “I heard her here. Both times. Your shop is not far. It seemed a logical place to start.”
Sindri thought back to what he’d seen in the lake, to the cold feeling still lingering on his hand. Those last words, barely heard but somehow…he knew. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it yet. “Lúnda’s not here, is she?” Sindri asked.
“No, she stayed at your home. The head, too.” Oh, thank goodness. Mimir sometimes had good advice, sometimes, but Mimir advice was the last thing Sindri needed. “I made sure they wouldn’t follow. You have time.”
That settled it. Kratos was officially the singular most confusing person Sindri knew. Somehow the biggest, scariest grump in the Nine Realms, and at the same time the person who’d sure Sindri had some privacy.
I guess that’s what Faye saw in him.
“How do you do it?” Sindri asked quietly. “How do you…handle it all?”
“Not as well as you’d think.” The slight, self-mocking note to Kratos’s tone almost made Sindri regret asking, but the next sentence was thoughtful: “I simply lived with it, for a long time. If you can call it living. Faye, she…”
He paused. Sindri saw him flex his hand, as if he could still feel her touch, too. “...she said once that we would always walk together. That she would always carry a part of me, and I of her. The culmination of love is grief, and yet…we still open our hearts to it. I did not understand what she meant until recently.” He looked at Sindri. “The pain…no longer feels like pain. Or it feels less so. Instead I feel her. What she taught me, what she gave me. It takes time to accept, but it is possible.”
You can bear it.
It felt like Kratos was saying the same thing.
Sindri stared out over the water. He tried to focus on the golden light, the distant bird song. “I mean,” he said finally, “Faye hasn’t been wrong yet.” The comment got a slight chuckle out of Kratos, something Sindri wasn’t expecting but was weirdly proud of. “She was right about something else. He who walks his own path walks alone.” Finally, he met Kratos’s eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, and…I’m sorry for what I said.”
“You were grieving. I understand. It is behind us.” There was still a softness in his eyes, despite the words. Relief, maybe? He was still so hard to read. “I do not know if you heard…”
“About Atreus or about Týr?”
“Both.”
Sindri had heard. They were some of the last pieces of gossip he’d heard before isolating himself. The Týr thing…he was trying not to think about. That was beyond the scope of what he could handle right now. The Atreus part…
“He’s going to be okay, right?” Sindri said quietly. He didn’t want to think of an alternative: that the last things he’d said to Atreus had been in anger, that they’d never been able to fix things. For everything that hurt between him and Brok, and for all the hurt Sindri felt now that he was gone, at least they’d been able to reconcile. He didn’t want things to be different with Atreus.
Kratos nodded. “He will,” he said, not even a hint of hesitation. “I know he will.”
Maybe one day, Sindri would develop Kratos’s confidence. Right now, he settled on hope. Hope that Kratos was right. Hope that Faye was right.
Hope that he wouldn’t find himself back on these shores again.
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the water and the clouds moving across the sky. Eventually, when his chest stopped hurting so much, Sindri spoke again: “I don’t know if…if I can go back to the house.”
Kratos didn’t hesitate: “There is room in my home, if you wish. I cannot promise the wolves will leave you alone, but there is always a place for you.”
Right, the wolves. The thought did make his skin itch a bit, but…
You know what? The wolves were a better alternative.
“Okay,” Sindri said. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“Hmm.” Kratos stood and offered Sindri a hand. “I’m sure.”
Sindri only hesitated for a second before accepting the help up. “Home, then,” Kratos said.
“Yeah. Home.”
#god of war#god of war sindri#suicidal thoughts cw#suicide attempt cw#god of war spoilers#ragnarok spoilers#god of war ragnarok spoilers#spoilers#fic: the balance of life is in the ripe and ruin
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I could not say which was the truer thought:
the cats or the lost child; and I think again
of calling home that night from Sweden,
of hearing my mother’s voice and telling her
what you had done (tablets, rum, calling
to say goodbye), and how I made
an animal sound, a noise so primitive
that I felt inhuman, how I cried
like something new-born
because I had found myself
in a world where all abstract things
(death, fear, loss) had bloomed in my mind,
and what is a parent to a child but a god
who we turn to when we still believe
that everything is fixable, a god
who we weep to as we grow
into the world, as we age into it
and each abstraction comes closer.
— Seán Hewitt, from "Kyrie," Tongues of Fire
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“ tell me who did this to you. “ with Dib asking Zim :D
Okay. So, this ask was sent in a long time ago as part of a whump/injury sentence-starter ask game. When I say a long time, I mean the time stamp was August 27th. And I didn’t forget about it, delete it, or file it away. I just got super carried away with it. These writing prompts were supposed to be relatively short, and I ended up writing damn near 3,000 words for this.
On to the story, itself, I got kind of dark with it. For anyone who wants to read this, that’s just a heads up. It is tagged appropriately, and I implore anyone who is sensitive to darker themes and mental illness to use their best discretion. I did my part by tagging; do your part by abiding by those tags if you know it will upset you.
That said, here’s the story for this prompt.
Prompt: “Tell me who did this to you.”
Characters: Zim, Dib, Computer
Relationships: ZaDf
Words: 2,990
“Tell me who did this to you!”
Zim began to murmur some response, but the already incoherent words tapered off into ragged gurgling in the back of his throat. He weakly clutched his midsection and choked down unsteady breaths, seemingly unaware that Dib’s hands were already pressing down on the same area to apply pressure to the wound.
“Zim!”
The lab, dimly lit even when the electricity was working properly, had been pitch black when Dib had entered it. The entire base had been like this—decrepit and void of its usual hum of energy and life. Dib had called for Zim, growing more and more concerned the further down he made it into the base’s subterranean levels. That was, until he heard a faint moan that had managed to permeate the shroud of darkness and silence.
Zim had been on the floor, square in the middle of a pool of dark, sticky liquid. It took only a glimpse for Dib to connect that it was blood. Zim’s blood. It took a closer look, however, to see where it was coming from. Sodden gloved claws gripped at his abdomen, unable to hold on as Dib pried them away. This only led to the pool of blood expanding quicker on the ground. Dib had abandoned his effort at getting a good look at the wound and had turned instead to trying to stop the bleeding.
“Zim!” he shouted at him again. This only earned a faint flick of his eyes in his direction.
“We need to get you to the med bay now,” Dib muttered frantically and mostly to himself.
Zim didn’t reply. He was fading fast and likely didn’t hear a word of what he was saying. His face was ghostly white and almost glowing in the darkness.
Against his better judgement, Dib removed his hands from the wound and quickly shrugged out of his jacket. He hastily wrapped it around Zim’s torso and scooped him in his arms with alarmingly little protest from the Irken.
“Computer, prepare the med bay.”
A beat of silence passed. The room remained just as dark and deathly silent as it had when he’d entered.
Perhaps Dib would have felt stupid if panic wasn’t overtaking every inch of space in his mind. He clutched his phone as best he could and angled it in front of him to cast its weak flashlight over the walls. At the far end of the laboratory, he spotted what he was looking for—the breaker system. Several handles lined the back corner, all switched off. He raced to the other end and flipped them all back on.
He heard the power return to the base before he saw it. It started as a low hum that gradually increased in volume until the floor they were on lit up and Dib was blinded by the light of Zim’s huge computer monitor. He didn’t really stop to take in anything as he raced across the room towards the elevator and ordered it to the next floor.
As his eyes adjusted, he could see just how much blood he and Zim were covered in. It felt unfathomable that so much blood could have possibly been in Zim’s body in the first place. Even harder to believe was that Zim hadn’t yet stopped breathing. In came in and out in weak, shaky bursts.
As soon as the elevator came to its stop, Dib raced out and into the main room. “Do something!”
Despite the snappy order, he was still spooked when several metal arms dropped down from the ceiling. Two snatched Zim away from him while a third deployed some sort of scanner that trailed from the Irken’s antennae and steadily moved downward. It paused noticeably on his torso, then traveled down to his feet before shutting off and disappearing back into the rafters.
Somehow, Zim managed to open his eyes again. Dib’s breath hitched in his throat. When he had found him on the floor in the base’s laboratory, his eyes had been somewhat alert. Now, they were taking on an oddly glassy quality. Before Dib could react further, the platform Zim was on opened into a trapdoor and promptly carried him away.
Dib blinked. Everything had gone from complete mayhem to stillness in an instant. “What’s going on?” he asked the empty room. His pulse was still pounding in his ears.
“Emergency repair protocols for biological shell,” came the computer’s response from above. “Scan shows severe blood loss from a gunshot wound in the abdomen and through the lower squeedlyspooch.”
“Gunshot wound?” Dib pushed his glasses up on his nose, disturbed by the scent and sight of Zim’s blood on his hand as he did so. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Prognosis: 50% chance of survival.”
Dib’s heart dropped to his stomach. How could this have happened?
His mind traveled back to what had transpired just moments before. He had walked into Zim’s base. Noticed it was dark and eerily quiet. Began searching for Zim.
Dib thought about one of the first things he’d blurted once he’d found him.
“Tell me who did this to you!”
After the precursory “What happened?!” and “Oh my God!”, the very next thing he’d thought to say was “tell me who did this do you!” It was obvious someone had done this to him. Zim hadn’t been anywhere near any tools or equipment that could have led to his injury. Not to mention, the location of it on his body seemed too exact to have been a lab accident. Dib had learned enough over the years to know that the only surefire way to kill an Irken was to target both their body and their life support. Impalement through the abdomen and PAK would destroy the biological and mechanical shell in the same shot and prevent any chance of the PAK operating without a live host.
“Computer…” Dib started, voice weak. “Is there anyone else in the base?”
“Unknown.”
This simple word turned his blood to ice water. Unknown. How could the computer not know? Did being taken offline mess it up somehow? Did an intruder disable its security system? Did it simply not have the capacity to give Dib an answer while focusing its energy on Zim?
Dib opened his mouth to ask another question, then pursed his lips. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be getting any meaningful responses from the computer while it was working to “repair” Zim. It was just as well. There had been a time not so very long ago when the computer wouldn’t have let anything resembling Dib’s bio signature near the base, never mind answer questions spoken from his own mouth.
Deep from a lower level of the base, the sound of clinking echoed up. It could have been nothing more than the computer retrieving something in Zim’s surgical theater, but Dib whipped around nonetheless, eyes wide.
There could be someone in the base right now. The very same person who had just tried to murder Zim in cold blood.
He swallowed thickly and glanced every which way. The med bay was quiet. He crept to the elevator. “Take me to the main level.”
The computer still didn’t respond, but the elevator began its leisurely trek upwards. Dib didn’t even know what he would do if he saw an intruder. Would the intruder still have the gun on them? Would it be some sort of Irken plasma gun or a typical Earth handgun with typical Earth bullets? Would he, too, end up left for dead in a pool of his own blood if they crossed paths?
The elevator slid to a stop, and Dib stepped out of it meekly. The front room was utterly silent, television powered down and lights flicked off.
He peered into the kitchen. Nothing. A glance at front door revealed that it was just as he’d left it when he’d walked in, closed with only the bottom lock in place. He turned his head towards the couch. The cushions were perfectly aligned with both pillows arranged neatly at either end.
“Hello?” he asked the room, shivering at the sound of his voice as it pierced the air. There wasn’t a single stir in response, though. Still keeping his head on a swivel, Dib stepped back into the elevator.
It occurred to him that the next logical place to check would be Zim’s Voot hangar. It would be a likely place for an intruder to hide… then again, Dib couldn’t recall if the hangar was even unlocked. Zim hadn’t used his ship in years. He couldn’t use it even if he’d wanted to…
“Take me to the next level down.”
The computer did as it was told, and Dib stepped out into the cold, dimly lit room. This level was wholly unremarkable—some storage area where Zim kept his old, junked projects. Many of them were caked in dust, and some had been scavenged from to add to others. The more impressive inventions were near the back of the room. These had been created back when Zim and Dib were actively at each others’ throats. They had also been created back when the Irken Empire was still funding Zim’s mission.
It had been several years now since Zim’s leaders had cut him off. They’d cut him off in every way possible. Any and all funding for his mission was gone, leaving him financially desolate. No transmissions would go through. He had no money, nor did he have the means to order more supplies, be it ammunition, parts, fuel for his ship, or even food.
Right around then had been the turning point in Dib’s relationship with Zim. They had gone from being sworn enemies to… well, not friends. Certainly not. They were more like two people who checked in on each other.
Once it became clear that Earth would no longer be in any real harm… well, Dib couldn’t necessarily explain his actions. He had taken some initial (and outwardly expressed) joy in the idea that no armada was coming, no shipments of superweapons would appear in Zim’s yard, and Zim had no real means or motivation to accomplish his goal of world conquest. If he had been cut off from Irk, then he wasn’t much of a threat anymore, was he?
These feelings faded over time, though.
It began with one pity-visit to Zim’s house, then became a several. Sequentially came trips to the convenience store to try to find things he could eat. Once it became apparent Zim had no real idea how to live on Earth independently, Dib had taken to checking in on him every now and then.
Hence today...
Dib stepped out of the elevator, trying to stay alert, but wondering all the while who could have targeted Zim. Why would anyone target Zim? He hadn’t really done much in the last few years to warrant it. Dib would know that better than anyone.
To his own chagrin, he was back in the laboratory. With the lights on and his mind not clouded with panic, he was able to properly observe the scene of the incident. Irken blood streaked the floors and coated the walls outside the elevator. It smelled strongly of… something. It wasn’t quite like human blood, but it had an oddly powerful scent to it.
Dib took a few shy steps out of the elevator and looked around. There was something on the floor near the blood puddle, but he couldn’t tell what it was until he got closer. Then, with an overwhelming jolt of confusion and fear, he realized it was the gun.
The one the intruder had used to harm Zim. They had… just left it there…
While it was undeniably Irken, it was small and rather simple-looking.
How had this happened?
It was possible that it was left over from Zim’s own arsenal and had been pilfered when the intruder broke in. Maybe from a squatter who had assumed the base was abandoned? Zim did live rather quietly these days.
It occurred to Dib, too, that the intruder could have been Irken and had abandoned their gun after doing the deed. That wouldn’t be totally out of the question.
Dib didn’t dare touch it. Instead, he walked around the lab, sharply glancing around for any movement. He turned a corner, towards the area Zim kept old machinery and parts.
“Ahhhh!” he nearly jumped out of his skin, shouting in the emptiness. He slapped his hands over his mouth and stumbled backwards. His immediate thought was that he’d been caught by Zim’s attacker, lying in wait. When his eyes adjusted, though, he saw what it actually was—GIR.
The robots eyes were a dull gray, and his head was slumped forward next to a toolbox. Nestled beside him was a round purple lump. Minimoose.
Dib examined them closer, going to far as to tilt GIR’s chin upward. They were both free from any visible disrepair. It just looked like they’d been powered down. He didn’t know Zim’s robots could be powered down.
Absolutely perturbed, he took a few steps backwards.
From his periphery, he could see Zim’s massive computer flickering. It had nearly blinded him with its brightness when the lights had come back on, but Dib had been too preoccupied to give it a single glance.
Now, he could see it was a video, playing and replaying on a loop. Some sort of news broadcast, he surmised. Confused, he sat down in Zim’s chair and watched what was happening on screen.
Footage of dead and dying Irkens. The ruins of buildings that resembled the architecture of Zim’s base uncannily. A masterful camera pan of shrapnel floating aimlessly in space. Shrapnel that, when Dib closely examined it, began to take the form of what had once been The Massive. More footage of the first planet, this time overrun with oddly familiar aliens. Dib had seen them before… he knew he had. They resembled manta rays and radiated with a strange, gossamer light in the dark streets of… of Irk.
Suddenly, several realizations hit Dib at once. Those aliens. They were the Meekrob. And that planet was Irk. Zim’s home. They had destroyed the mothership of Irk’s rulers. Quite likely had killed the Tallest in the doing so. Taken over the planet.
Dib thumped back into the chair, dumbfounded. Zim hadn’t had access to anything beyond Earth in years. He’d tried, of course, to make some sort of connection with nearby spaceships, radio stations, news broadcasts, and of course, with his beloved Tallest. Nothing had been successful.
Until now, Dib thought.
Zim must have been down here, trying to establish some sort of connection for the umpteenth time and had finally done so… only to discover that Irk had been overtaken by the Meekrob sometime during his lost years of computer static and connection errors.
Dib squinted at the taglines at the bottom of the broadcast and realized it wasn’t written in Irken—no, it was written in another, vaguely similar script. This was a Meekrobian news cast. One of celebration.
Dib sat frozen in the chair, taking it all in. The news segment ended, then repeated from the beginning.
Zim must have been devastated…
Another realization hit Dib, this time with a sinking of fear that settled like lead in his stomach. The strange, meticulous nature of everything he’d stumbled upon. The lack of power in the base that prevented the computer from activating security protocols or otherwise intervening. The robots, deactivated and placed carefully in the corner. The gunshot wound that could not have been an accident…
Dib lifted a shaky hand and pulled his glasses off. The other hand cradled his forehead, elbow propped against the consul. “How is Zim’s condition?” he asked at last.
“Survival rate now at 96%. Major organs were not harmed, and only slight cosmetic PAK damage was sustained. Blood loss is severe.”
His shoulders untensed slightly, but the sick feeling in his stomach remained. “Do you—” his voice cracked, and he swallowed thickly. “—Do you mind if I stay for a while… until he wakes up?”
“Sure.”
A couple more hours passed, and Dib remained in the laboratory curled in Zim’s too-small chair in front of the monitor. He’d long since asked the computer to turn off the gruesome footage and was simply waiting in silence.
Late into the night, he was finally allowed back into the med bay where Zim was propped in a recovery bed and awake. His abdomen was notably swollen and wrapped extensively with bandages. He looked both woozy and alarmingly pale, but he was still worlds more alert than he had been when Dib had originally found him.
Dib drifted to his bedside and stared down at him. “Zim…” He had to gather himself before he could repeat the same words he’d asked before. “Tell me who did this to you.”
The words hung in the air between them. Dib’s tone had taken on a quality that, coming from the mouth of any another person, would demand respect. Gone were the petulant, whiny inflections of his youth, and in their place was a certain poise that was easily reminiscent of his own father’s confident speech pattern. Unfortunately, what he had to say often overpowered how he said it. his attempts at persuasion scarcely had any effect on anyone in his life. They certainly never had any effect on Zim. This time, though, he hoped against hope that they would.
The Irken blinked his sunken eyes a few times. Even under the fog of anesthesia, they looked unusually morose.
Dib waited.
Zim opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it. His antennae pressed back flush against his skull. He took a breath and opened his mouth again. “I did.”
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Gabriel Darku and Praneet Akilla in
OCTOBER FACTION // 1.04 “Soirees of Future Past”
#gabriel darku#praneet akilla#october faction#october faction netflix#tvedit#tvgifs#octoberfactionedit#geoff allen#phillip mishra#geoff x phillip#suicide attempt cw#mygraphics#gif
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By a Thread
Word Count: 3.1k
“I don’t have time for this, Miguel.”
“Then just get to her when you find time.”
“I can’t leave a malfunctioning AI in the apartment. Are you nuts?”
“I’m sure Jack will handle it.”
“No, it’s fine,” the woman admonishes him through the speaker of his watch. “I’ll just drop what I was doing and head over to fix your problem. Not like I possibly could have been in the middle of something important.”
“There’s nothing to rush for, Xina. Get to it when you get to it.”
“How considerate. Get bent.”
The call drops from her end.
Miguel shuts the watch off. Briefly, he reconsiders ringing Gabriel, but he knows he won’t pick up. He’ll hear it from Xina, anyway.
He looks across the street at the billboard that stretches up to meet him, blurring his vision; he can faintly make out the shape of a full screen projection for a Fujikawa bike, hovering feet from the true surface of the building, the computer-generated model in its seat rotating as she poses provocatively. The ad fades into another splash of patches of color that flood his view, his sight already blurred from the stinging cold. Under normal circumstances it’s too much for his photosensitivity to tolerate.
But he has no sunglasses on, because despite the wash of light that blinds him, he feels like he’s seeing clearly for the first time.
He stands on the roof’s edge. A hooded jacket keeps the snow piling on his shoulders from rousing him. His suit and the rest of his gear is at home. He doesn’t need them.
He knows Lyla, even with her scrambled memory, will give him away soon enough when Xina gets to her. But it’s better she’s with her. He doesn’t want Lyla stranded in his apartment with equipment he’s left behind. But he knows Xina will figure it all out soon enough. He can’t be careless with his time.
He stares through the falling flurries at the sign beneath his feet, the neon letters of the Alchemax logo upside down from his vantage point.
The building is empty at this hour. A temporary relocation for operations after the partial destruction of the facility higher uptown. It’s sealed off now, condemned after the multiversal collapse managed to take part of it down before the reversal. No one has said whether or not it will ever be restored. It’s easier to move and make use of the scraps later. But still, he finds the new location acceptable for his purposes. The people downtown don’t think twice about misfortune falling on them from the sky. They’ve seen enough. The uptown crowd, though; they could probably benefit from having their bubbles burst for once in their lives.
He looks down at the street that feels miles below him. The mist and snow don’t let him see where the roads are, but he’s not aiming for precision. It’ll work itself out.
He takes the watch off, letting it slip out of his grasp soundlessly into the haze. The clouds light up with the color of the billboard across the street, cycling through neon hues before fading into black.
He steps off the edge.
The freezing air slices at him on his way down, roaring in his ears as it catches in his hood. The hurtle is all too familiar, but the anticipation in his limbs is gone. He lets his arms hang away from his sides, the spinnerets fully relaxed. He goes limp. He won’t need them.
He’s caught in the light of the billboard as he falls, filling his vision with colors he almost forgot after years in the dark. They’re beautiful.
He’s a third of the way down now. The wind stings his nose and eyes. He closes them. There’s nothing else to see.
Except for a sudden impact on his chest.
His eyes fly open right before he’s yanked out of his path; he’s hurtling towards the Alchemax building, into an alcove halfway down the side of its façade.
He misses it by half a second, slamming into the lower ledge with a pained grunt. He’s yanked upward and back by an unseen force, his hood obscuring his vision. Without thinking, he releases his claws to hitch into the glass under the ledge, shattering it under the pressure of his grasp. He catches the edge of the floor as he’s pulled back, slipping as the ice melts under his touch. He flies back into the pile of snow behind him.
“Sorry. Sorry, not my best timing.”
Miguel whips his head up to see Peter standing to his side, wearing an army green trenchcoat over his suit. Miguel follows the webbing from his wrist down to his own chest. Skipping the state of stun altogether, Miguel rips the web off, jumping up to lunge at Peter. He dodges Miguel, sending him crashing into the wall of the open alcove.
“Miguel, calm down!”
“You goddamn jerk!”
“That is the opposite of calm!” Peter yells, shooting a web to the ceiling and pulling himself out of the way of Miguel’s own thread, leaping into the corner as Miguel continues to shoot after him.
“What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to come back!” Miguel screams, digging his claws into the wall to climb up after Peter.
“I’ve got friends in old places,” Peter answers, holding himself in the corner as he shoots more web at Miguel. He doesn’t count on Miguel catching it and yanking him forward. He yells as he falls, angling his body to land on Miguel’s shoulders feet first; he locks his knees against Miguel’s neck, falling backward to throw the larger man back over his head. They both scuttle to move upright in the snow, facing each other. Peter’s watch flashes through different colors.
“I’m not buying that, Peter,” Miguel yells, catching his breath. “Hobie would never put you up to this. He would never try to help me.”
“Well, he’s more open to me,” Peter yells back. “Miguel, you’ve gotta stop for a second, man.”
“You’re not supposed to be here. Everyone else was happy to leave me behind after Spot.”
“I wasn’t leaving you, Miguel. I knew I was going to come back. And I’m lucky Lyla got to me when she did. …Which I shouldn’t have said. Please don’t tell her I said that.”
“¡Cabrón terco! When are you going to get it through your thick head that everyone left for a reason. Everyone else is more than content to leave me alone. Follow their example.”
“Maybe that’s how things work around here, but not where I’m from.”
“Then go home.”
Miguel turns to make for the ledge again; Peter tackles him, sending them both spiraling into the snow. They struggle, Miguel sending out an elbow into Peter’s sternum, knocking the wind out of him. Peter falls to the ground where Miguel pins him.
“I’m not…” Peter starts, interrupted by a hacking cough, “I’m not letting you do this, Miguel.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Neither am I,” Peter says, jutting an arm out to shoot web up at the ceiling until it pools into a mound. With the last of his strength, he angles his feet up between his and Miguel’s torsos, shoving the other man up into the nest. Miguel flails before Peter sends up another round of web, pinning him to the ceiling.
“Just stop for a minute, Miguel!” Peter yells again, wobbling onto his feet. “You’re not in your right mind.”
“I’m in it for the first time in my life!” Miguel shouts, wrestling against the layers of thread. “You had to go and screw it up.”
“Is that what you would say to Gabriel?”
“Leave him out of this.”
“And Xina?”
“They’re better off!” Miguel shouts, briefly going limp. There’s silence in the chamber for the first time, apart from the ragged breathing of both men.
“They’re… better off,” Miguel mumbles again, his head sinking forward, his hood following. Peter frowns.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because there isn’t a life I’ve touched that I haven’t ruined,” Miguel says.
“That’s not true, Miguel.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s not.”
“Look at me, Peter!” he roars. “Look at Xina. At my mother. Even my own brother won’t talk to me. Everyone would be better off if I hadn’t been involved in the first place.”
There’s silence.
“You can fix all of that, Miguel. You have to try.”
“Tell Dana that.”
Peter huffs, placing his hands on his hips and looking down to collect his thoughts.
“You know I’m right, Peter.”
“I know there’s countless people both home and beyond here that would disagree with you,” Peter yells back. “I know leaving Miles on his own against Spot could have had a very different outcome.”
He watches Miguel’s expression darken at the mention of the name.
“Tell yourself whatever you want, Peter.”
“Yeah, I will, actually,” Peter snaps. “I’ll also tell myself that it’s pretty damn lucky he had backup when he did. We wouldn’t have gotten to him without the resources we had. And we had them because of you.”
Miguel glowers.
“This is all very poetic, Peter,” he growls, his voice flat. “Great speech. Now go.”
“I’m not leaving, Miguel. Not until you get your head back on straight.”
“Would you give it up, please?”
“No!” Peter shouts, hands balling into fists. “No, I won’t! You know why? Because I know exactly how it feels!”
Miguel blinks.
“I know how it feels when everything seems to go wrong no matter how hard you try. I get it. When I look at you, I see me, Miguel.”
Miguel’s expression shifts. For a moment Peter exhales in relief. Then he sees Miguel’s eyes harden.
“You see you?” he barks. “You think we’re the same?”
Peter shuffles back. This isn’t good.
“You think you know what it’s like to be me because we wear the same costume? Because you don’t.”
“Miguel, just hold on,” Peter calls out, fear dawning in his expression.
“You don’t get it, Peter.”
“Miguel, please…”
“You don’t!”
Miguel tears his arms forward from the trap. Thread shoots down from his wrists on either side of Peter. Miguel yanks upward, ripping himself from the webbing; he flies down, slamming feet first into Peter and knocking him flat on his back.
“Did you kill a man the first night you became Spider-Man?”
Peter struggles as Miguel crawls forward; he pushes his entire weight over Peter’s midsection, claws pinning the smaller man’s shoulders to the ground.
“Did you watch yourself sabotage every relationship with the people you claimed to love?”
Miguel grabs to catch Peter’s hair, missing as the other man squirms and beating around his head as he swings. Peter raises his wrists in front of his face, powerless to do much else.
“Did you have to navigate this whole shocking ordeal with no one in your corner? Not even the people who raised you?”
“Mig-”
“I had two fathers who cared nothing for me except as a means to an end, and you think we’re the same?” he yells, shoving Peter’s shoulders back down into the snow.
“You think those things are comparable? Is that what you think?!” he shouts, tightening his hold on Peter’s suit.
Peter’s hands fall away from his face, eyes wide. “I-I didn’t…” he stammers.
“Say it, Peter! Say our lives are exactly the same.”
He watches cloud after cloud rise and melt from Peter’s mouth with every exhale, knows from the darting of his eyes that he’s looking and failing to find a rebuttal. The clouds stop when Peter purses his lips.
He loosens his grip on Peter’s collar, but keeps the fabric in his grasp. He lets go as he rises, turning to walk to the wall. He falls against it back to the ground, letting his arms rest over his knees. His head hangs. He can hear the crunch of the snow as Peter shifts.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
He can feel Peter’s eyes on him, knows that Peter expects this to prompt him to look up. He continues to stare at the snow between his feet.
“I was lucky. I had Aunt May. And MJ.”
The snow muffles his movement as he struggles to get up on one knee, groaning with the effort. He stands and leans forward, exhaling as his hands rest on his thighs.
“Your road was pretty bumpy compared to mine. I won’t argue with you on that.”
Peter stands up to look at Miguel, who keeps his gaze fixed on the ground.
“It makes it all the more impressive that you turned out the way you did,” Peter continues, hobbling over to Miguel’s side, angling to kneel down next to him. He hears a scoff.
“Yes, very admirable.”
“Miguel, I mean it,” Peter says. “Not everyone would have done what you did.”
“Thank God for that.”
Peter blinks.
“Excuse me?”
“I killed all those people, Peter.”
Silence.
“What?”
“The Gwens. The captains. The uncles. I’m the reason they’re gone.”
Peter’s mouth sets in a firm line. “They didn’t die because of you, Miguel.”
“They would have lived if not for me.”
Peter stares, then looks down. His fingers twitch before he rolls them into a fist. He turns his head to the billboard across the street, letting the light wash over him.
“I told myself the same thing,” he finally says. Despite himself, Miguel lifts his head.
“I could have gotten there earlier. I could have called the ambulance faster. I probably could have stopped him from getting shot at all,” Peter continues, falling to sit properly. “All of it felt like my fault. And, y’know, yeah. Maybe it was. A little.”
He turns to Miguel.
“But that’s why I knew it couldn’t happen again. I couldn’t let it.”
The snow continues to fall.
“You didn’t have that,” Peter adds.
“What?”
“That night you broke out of the lab. Nobody was there to give you the speech. So why did you start helping people?”
Miguel stays silent. He shrugs.
“That’s not an answer. Why did you do it?” Peter barks suddenly. Miguel startles.
“What else was I supposed to do?” he retorts. Peter nods.
“That’s right.”
Miguel sighs.
“So is that it?” he says. “I’m supposed to feel better about hundreds of people dying because I, what, stopped a police beatdown or two? Why tell me any of this?”
Peter sighs.
“Because… you were right. You can’t save everyone.”
Miguel blinks slowly. His breath escapes him in one labored drag.
“So what do you do?”
Peter sits, looking at him.
“We do what we can.”
Miguel stares at him, the light from the billboard shifting the hues outlining Peter from behind. He looks back down. They sit in silence for a long moment.
“I know it feels like it doesn’t matter sometimes,” Peter speaks again, shifting to face Miguel. “But it did to the people you got away from the flyboys. It did to the people you kept alive in downtown. That’s the nature of the job. If you do it right, people keep living their lives. There’s no loss to mourn. It’s why the failures stand out so much.”
Miguel’s jaw clenches as his teeth come together on the insides of his cheeks, staining his tongue with a crisp metallic tinge as one side rips open from the pressure. He ignores it.
“The victories matter, Miguel. I promise you they do.”
He tries to stop the tremors in his hands. He tries to stop the shaking as it travels up his arms and settles in his shoulders like a swelling tide; tries to keep his eyes open so they dry before spilling over. He fails.
He twitches forward, sinking his head between his knees before the choked sobs can escape him; Peter watches his trunk shake, the gasps punctuating each spasm. His face is buried in his arms and hood, away from Peter’s gaze.
Peter extends an arm sideways over Miguel’s back, resting his hand on one shoulder. He can feel him continue to shake underneath him. He reaches out with the other arm, wrapping around Miguel’s torso and pulling him in toward him, sitting silently as the man trembles. The snow muffles his sobs.
Neither can say how much time passes before the shudders slow and his breathing stabilizes. He doesn’t look up.
Peter holds his shoulder in one hand, giving it a gentle pat. He slowly loosens his grip. When he finally draws back, Miguel is still facing the ground. He sits still for another moment before he brings a hand to his face, rubbing the ball of his palm forcefully into one eye socket, running the side across his other eye and under his nose. He leans back against the wall, expressionless.
“Don’t stop on my account,” Peter says with half a tired smile. Miguel exhales, looking straight ahead. Peter leans back on the wall with him, closing his eyes so the shapeless colors from the billboard fill his vision.
Another minute passes.
Peter opens his eyes and turns. Miguel hasn’t moved.
“Alright then,” he groans before pushing himself forward to stand.
“You ready?” Peter asks. Miguel’s hands wrap around his knees as he considers Peter’s question.
“I don’t know,” Miguel answers, letting one knee fall to the side. “I don’t know what’ll happen.”
“Nobody does, Miguel.”
“Then how will I know I won’t just screw it all up again?”
He looks directly at Peter, who seems at a loss for an answer. He purses his lips again.
“You won’t.”
Miguel stares, then rests his head against the wall again. He knows it was too much, expecting the solution to tie itself together for him.
“The same way you won’t know what’ll happen right after you jump,” Peter continues, taking a step toward the ledge. “You just know you’re gonna catch yourself. And then you’ll figure it out from there.”
Miguel looks at him again to see the same tired smile. He lets a slow breath out from his nose before his head dips in a half-nod.
“Okay.”
Peter lets him rest another moment.
“You ready now?” he asks again.
He nods slowly.
“Yeah. Lord knows Xina’s probably pieced it together already and broken into my apartment.”
Peter chuckles lightly. “Sounds like love to me.”
There’s a pointed pause.
“Yeah, no, she’s definitely gonna get herself arrested,” Miguel drones, lurching forward to push himself off the ground. “We should go.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Peter answers, moving to give Miguel space to approach the open edge of the alcove. He tries to shake the cold out of his hands in preparation for the leap.
“Peter.”
He turns at the sound of his name to catch Miguel staring at the light across the street, so stone-faced he can’t be sure his lips really moved. Maybe the snow is playing tricks on him.
“Thank you,” Miguel says.
Peter smiles. He knows he’s only going to hear it once. And that’s fine with him.
“Any time.”
He waits for Miguel to jump before he follows.
#miguel o'hara#spider-man 2099#peter b parker#spiderdads if you squint#across the spiderverse#spiderverse#fanfic#suicide attempt cw#atsv spoilers
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ok like dont attempt suicide with pain pills not because like attempting suicide isnt. good. dont die. but because then you cant drink fucking pain pills for your fucking headache because all you can think of is that time you tried to kill yourself with pain pills. it's really inconvenient.
#i have a headache :/ and i was a stupid... 14/15 year old#my lonely rambles#suicide#suicide attempt#suicide cw#suicide tw#suicide attempt cw#suicide attempt tw
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If I actually like had the means to go to the doctor or a hospital or whatever every time I’m injured or need to I would basically live there
I was taught that money is more important than my comfort or even my life as when I attempted suicide at sixteen my dad did not say one kind word and wouldn’t come near me while I was convulsing and crying and couldn’t move my facial muscles. Mom was holding my hand crying praying and telling me she loved me. He would not even come in the room. All I heard him say was “this is gonna cost so much fuckin money.” and now I just don’t ever feel like I matter enough to ask to get something checked out even if it’s really really really bad. Feel like I’m not worth anything sometimes. that’s just how it is here .. get hurt break bones have severe head injuries be covered in bruises and hematomas in so much pain it’s difficult to walk up the stairs, having a horrible mental crisis.. doesn’t matter. You just gotta deal with it bc you’re not worth the time resources or energy even when you could die
That really messed me up and still does mess with me sometimes. It effected me a lot and the way I see myself and medical situations and such. I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of feeling like I don’t deserve those things in the slightest
When I recently confronted him about what he said and expressed how much it hurt me his response was “it was such a waste of money you didn’t even take enough pills to even kill yourself” hah my bad
#ugh#💔#🩹#❤️🩹#suicide attempt cw#suicide attempt#suicide attempt tw#tw#ask to tag#would be more than glad to tag this or any other post with whatever y’all need me to <3#suicide mention#tw overdose#overdose mention#overdose#medical#p#rant#sorry lol..#vent
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He runs most of the way home, or tries to at least. As soon as he'd bolted away from Double Fang like a dog with it's tail between it's legs, he'd stumbled and staggered against a nearby wall. His head is killing him, the adrenaline only doing so much for a likely concussion but he can't stop, can't pause long or his escape will be denied him and he'll be caught again and a concussion will be the least of his worries.
So he staggers upright and, despite the pounding, despite the blur and tilt of his vision, he keeps running.
By the time he gets the door open and staggers into the condo, he's wheezing for breath, completely disheveled, blood staining his jacket where it's dripped from his face and the back of his head, mussed and bloodied as well. Legato is a complete mess and on top of that he's still shaking. The door closes harder then he means to but he hardly notices, staggering across the family room and into the kitchen.
He needs a knife, needs something large and sharp enough that he can plunge it straight into his throat and let his unworthy blood spill out. He's not deserving of even a death at Master Knives' hands, he shouldn't sully his Master with even his proximity.
Useless, pathetic, waste of space. Worthless, defenseless, a broken tool that can't even serve its one purpose anymore.
These thoughts have been the only ones in his head the whole way back, stuck on repeat with a ringing drowning out everything else around him. There's nothing else in his mind as he staggers into the kitchen, gets a bloodied hand around the handle of one of the knives in the block, pulls it out. His hands are shaking and he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that this will be messy and Master Knives shouldn't have to clean up after him so he turns to make his way toward the bathroom, catching himself on the wall as he goes.
@plantfell
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Experimental first draft scene. It'll probably change and be different when I actually dig into the fic but I do want this scene or something like it in the fic (at least, right now lol):
--
Today was the day the Stratos entered Vertumna’s wormhole to begin the final descent.
Sol stood at the control’s, Congruence’s code on their tongue, and hesitated what to do this time.
Destruction wasn’t permanent - saving all of the resources did squat before peace - and what was the point of going on when…
Well, Sol thought, what is the point of me going on?
They began typing the code in, readying the shields, feeling the burden of an age undone.
Sol was ten years old, about to land planetside for the first time.
Sol had connections to infinite other lifetimes, where being planetside had been lived and experienced for decades older than Sol’s shoulders could bear.
But that time is null, Sol thought. I lived long enough to die and be reborn.
Sol should be ten years old again, as they had been again and again but…
If I die here after Stratos is saved, Sol thought. Perhaps that will keep destructive changes at bay.
The canon events would occur again. They would not be derailed by…well. Sol finished priming the shields to max power.
“Congruence,” Sol said. “May we cut gravity to this room?”
They entered the master code - Congruence had been a friend and a guide many times over, but an AI was still an AI.
Sol felt their feet start to lift from the ground as the ship rattled harder and a new warning went off in the room.
A door opened.
A door opened?! Sol thought before they heard yelling.
“Grab their feet quick!” Another rattle sent Sol flipping backwards, and they saw Dys and Tang stumbling into the room. Dys pressed his feet into the wall and launched himself forward. Sol’s eyes were wide, and then yet another rattle slammed their head into one of the consoles in the room.
#i was a teenage exocolonist#iwatex#au#suicide attempt cw#sol's real fucked up over their previous timeline#like real messed up#it's going to be a point of conflict#their destructive need to stop#before the timeline can derail#bc they blame themselves in part for not being able to be a savior#my commentary#my commentary in tags#my fanfiction
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Consider the two following tragic options:
Wolfwood fully believes Livio is dead and gone for good, thinks his body is lost to the sands as worm-food, and that his little brother is dead because Wolfwood tried to save him, tried to remind him -- but he isn't a savior, he's a Punisher, and all he's good for is destruction.
Wolfwood knows that if Livio can heal wounds instantly without taking the serum, he's probably still alive out there in some capacity, because he knows what Conrad's healing experiments can do. Monev the Gale was a prototype, so a shot to the head was enough to be mercy, but Livio is a refined version of Wolfwood, and Wolfwood knows what a bullet through his brain feels like as well as the agony of the serum knitting his skull back together after his last chance at escape is denied.
#trigun stampede spoilers#nicholas d wolfwood#livio#angst#come get your tragic headcanons!#suicide attempt cw#trigun stampede thoughts#lena's trigun nonsense
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Febuwhump 2024: day 29. Not allowed to die
Series: untitled // rating: mature
Cw: suicide attempt
The Keys siblings, plus Amber, have built a house in the tree when they were barely nine years-old or so. It’s dangerously close to the border, to the limits of the packs territory. Safe bu dangerous enough to give them the thrills. It’s on the outskirts eough that Amber can return to it even after her banishment. The patrols don’t get close to that part of the woods.
Not after that night.
She climbs the ladder with a loaded shotgun strapped to her back.
Amber has never been lucky, she blinks, dazed.
The tree house walls are stained now. She never like the color of blood, hers looks darker than it should be and maybe she throws up her breakfast. She doesn’t know how it happened. She presses the barrel against the roof of her mouth.
Dark.
Than wake up.
The shotgun only had two bullets. She should need one to explode her head, apparently not. Amber knows she shot. It’s empty now, still warm, and the wall behind her is covered with blood and brain matter.
She throws up acid, stomach empty after shooting her own head twice. Twice and waking up in a gore fest, headache making everything fuzzy. Amber lays down, on her back, shotgun hugged against her chest. Under the stench of blood and denied death, there’s older scents. Scents from back in the day, from better times, when she was happy and safe. When she had a home and no reason to end it all.
When she had more smooth skin than jagged scars.
Amber isn’t sure for how long she stays there. Hours, maybe days, eventually she gets up and jumps down from the soiled house in the tree. And walks. She walks, walks and walks. Until she feels like her feet will fall off and she’s too weak to keep breathing.
“You’re not allowed to die, puppy,” she grunts, can’t even flinch when a hand touches her shoulder. “It’s not your time yet.”
Next thing she knows, she’s on a comfortable bed in what looks like a comfy cottage. She sits up, a hand on her shoulders push her back and she comes face to face with a woman. At least, something shaped like a woman. Solid black eyes, face a little too symmetrical and a scent too neutral to be a human. She’s handed a cup, it smells like mint tea with something bitter underneath – it reminds her of healers putting medicine in sweet tea to make younglings take it without complaining (or without complaining much).
She accepts, hoping the bitterness is poison.
“I’m Belladona,” she says, nodding approvingly as Amber takes sips. “You’ve been sleeping for a few days.”
“Where are we?”
“Deeper into the woods than wolves like you should be,” she sounds half amused and half worried. “You’re not the first puppy I find that comes here seeking for an ending. It’s not your time yet.”
“I don’t have much going on for me.”
“You have something going on for you,” she points at her chest, at the ugly, stupid scar where everything was ripped out of Amber. “Someone brought you back.”
“They shouldn’t have.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. You have a second chance.”
“I have nothing.”
“You could.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s sad. You can stay here for a while.”
Amber blinks: “Why?”
“Because I’m lonely, puppies usually are dead when I find them.”
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the body as cemetery
the first time you die you drink a bottle of cleaning fluid & moths of nurses wrap you in white swaddling curses fuck you they whisper a back alley lullaby fuck you they croon as you are interred in the hospital bed when the mourners come they seem happy a picnic in a mortuary.
//
the third time you die it is classic cinematic a bottle of your mother’s sleeping pills you swallow without water watching a film about a girl who is not loved it ends the cinema empties but you are not seen thin thing mouth like an earthquake in a country no one can spell they don’t find you until morning & you are sent away to apologise to the fat priests of psychiatry
you lie and your smile torn cunnus a split.
//
— Joelle Taylor, from "C+nto," C+nto
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