Summary: other than chronic physical pain, King Candy tends to deal with some sleeping problems too. This is one of these instances.
1/2(?)
(TW: implied character death, gore, PTSD, trauma)
"N-no!" He mumbled, still deep asleep, his expression tensing up before relaxing. His small sprite glitching every so often back to his old one.
The hidden one. The outdated one.
Sometimes the features of his cy-bug form would become visible for a split second. Tails, claws, wings...
His grip tightened on his bedsheets.
"Yeah! No! Yesth.. n-no... NO! " he mumbled, half-chuckling when he'd shift into a positive affirmation, half-whimpering when he'd change to a negative affirmation.
Turbo was terrified now more than ever.
It was so bright, so very bright.
And he was flying towards it. Towards that beautiful... agonizing, unforgiving, molten light.
He couldn't help it! It wasn't his fault. It was just so... tempting. Just go to it, hug it, eat it, claim it. He'd never felt such beauty that just called to him.
Is this what true love felt like?
When he wasn't in his right mind, he felt like it was. And it felt so good to just give in. Go to the light, my love, show it your all. Give it your all.
Perhaps it would cherish him. Hold him close, yes...
But then, there was something. Something nagging, pestering... something that tore him out of his delusions of warmth and safety. And dragged him back to that cruel reality.
Sense. Logic. Reason.
Fear.
This was not a lover. This was not what his code was telling him it was. It was a trap.
This was his death sentence. The day of judgement.
Scorching, blistering, melted alive.
And he was allowing it.
For a moment, no longer was he blinded by the insect's code. He was aware, he was alive. And he was about to die.
"PLEASTHE!"
His screams, his cries, the pathetic cries of only a loser, fell on deaf ears.
And worse than that? Not even he himself could listen to his cries. He was aware that soon, he would be blinded again. He was aware that his body was no longer his own.
He was aware that no matter what he did, how much he begged, he would still go into the light.
"NO!"
His head grew awfully hot inside his helmet, it reminded him when he'd race non-stop until the arcade closed back in TurboTime. Not a moment to pause. His outfit always grew so warm...
"HELP!"
Glistening hot. Sharp. It felt like ice but much... much hotter. Biting into his skin, liquifying it.
Funny. It reminded him of how it felt to get eaten by that thing. Torn apart, re-purposed. Except, after a brief moment, after it was done, it stopped.
This felt like an eternity. And he was doing this to himself. He couldn't fight like he tried to fight against the bug after the shock had worn over.
He was defenseless. Trapped in his own mind.
Afraid. And alone.
He wasn't ready to die. I'm not ready to go.
I won't. I refuse.
THIS IS NOT HOW IT ENDS. THIS IS NOT HOW I END.
I'm supposed to be LOVED. I'm supposed to be RESPECTED AND CHERISHED.
When he woke up, his anguished screams had practically been heard even outside of the castle, and woken up some of his subjects (the ones that had the lightest sleep) other than himself.
He's breathing. He's alive.
His code was intact... well, somewhat.
But that's what matters, that it's there, right?
And now, hahah.. his code was everywhere! Probably even on this platform his dream had been projected into. Yes, yes.
"King Candy?" The monotone voice of his henchman, never seeming to be fazed by anything, caused him to snap his head towards the entrance to his bed chambers.
Only then did he notice, when he tried to move, that he was shaking, gripping the covers he was coccooned into so tightly that his knuckles turned pale, almost like the skin of his TurboTime sprite.
He sniffled. His cheeks felt wet, the corners of his eyes too.
Sour Bill didn't even think to ask the reason why his King looked beyond distressed, he's seen it all before. He was all too familiar with the monarch's nightmares, usually he was able to awaken him before they grew worse, but he was never able to predict when they'd happen. And he needed sleep, too.
Besides, judging by the way his body meekly, but furiously, glitched red pixels here and there, accompanied by the shaking in his paralyzed form as he observed him, processing his presence, it didn't look like he was up for conversation.
Um for the Super Ghost AU I am just imagining that The Question managed to figure out basically everything about Gawain and the Mystery Skulls, but instead of it being his paranoia getting to him it's because he accidentally learned Gawain was a ghost, wanted to learn why he's a ghost and then he was going down the rabbit hole and by the time he climbed out of it he's just wondering what is Gawain's life, unlife, whatever and the life of his brother. Just, this came to me and refused to leave.
((*cracks knuckles*))
Question hadn't seen sunlight for nearly six days, and it had finally paid off.
He leaned over his hands on the edge of the desk, staring at the pin board before him. It was crisscrossed with color coded strands of yarn, and little push pins that held up photographs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and printed Internet screenshots. It wasn't the most complicated web he'd ever built, but it tied up neatly, and that was enough. Not every mystery had a a million twists to unwind.
The trail started in London, England, and stretched all the way across the Atlantic to a tiny town in Texas, USA, barely large enough to be a speck on a map. He had birth records, school enrollment records, science fair awards, promotions, Visa applications, mortgages, home appliance purchases, swing dance trophies, company picnic photos, a missing person's report, and an obituary, all leading to a giant question mark scribbled over a photo of a young blond man, with the word 'whereabouts?' written beneath it.
This photo connected to the next item in the chain with a quick arrow of blue, and another long, arching arrow connected a birth record from earlier in this leg to the same thing - a newspaper article from that small Texas town, talking about the mysterious case of a young boy with amnesia being found on the steps of a local restaurant. There was an article about the boy's adoption just a few months later, and then another article congratulating three local kids and their dog for solving a small time mystery.
The chain ran through several articles like this one, and the kids grew older as their mysteries evolved from misplaced mail and lost pets to package theft, poltergeist activity, and cryptid sightings. More and more, the articles talked about ghosts, creatures of urban legend, and even sightings of demons and occult activity. Around 2008, the newspaper articles became printed blog posts, and seemed to be written by the kids themselves.
Question laughed quietly to himself. Kids after his own paranoid heart, all three.
The articles came to an abrupt halt in 2014, with a missing persons report for the amnesiac boy (now an adult), and a series of articles about a groundbreaking prosthetic limb, developed by a genius young man who tested his prototype on himself after tragically loosing his own arm. There were a few more articles about the prosthetic, and a few photos to go along with them that showed the blond man from previous articles, and then there were a few clippings of local tabloids from a truck driver who swore he'd been carjacked by 'a flaming skeleton with great fashion sense'.
There was silence for a month or two, and then concurrent newspaper articles and blog posts about the miraculous return of one Lewis Pepper, thought to be dead from the same tragic caving accident that cost his best friend his arm. The blog posts about the supernatural returned, and the prosthesis research seemed to slow down. Coincidentally, a young man named 'Merlin Knight' with an eerily familiar face was hired at the local auto shop.
Question wondered if the entire town was playing dumb, or just stupid. The only real change was the clothing, and that long blond hair being braided.
This employment record connected all the way back to the obituary from the first leg of the chain, and proceeded on to connect with screenshots from a social media account of a robotic body, and the building of what would be, within a few month's time, the town's own local hero.
Question breathed out through his nose. A local hero who would go on to help save the world, and found the Justice League itself. Had that been part of the plan?
The web wrapped itself up quickly from there. Supernatural skills and abilities not possible by modern science, knowledge of other realms and creatures only known to mythology, and the tiny little clues he'd been hoarding and observing for a full year all pointed to the same conclusion. It wasn't as fantastical as it sounded, in all honesty, though Green Arrow had looked at him stranger than usual when he'd first said his conclusion out loud.
There were legitimate aliens, sorcerers, and demons in this reality - why not ghosts, too?
There was one final piece missing from the web, however, and he was out of clues to tie in. There was a near twenty year gap between the last known sighting of Gawain Kingsmen, and the appearance of 'Merlin Knight'. What had the man been doing for all that time? There had been no sightings of anyone even remotely matching the appearance of Gawain or 'Merlin' anywhere in that time, and without even the slightest whisper of a rumor on an Internet forum or library archive, there wasn't much more he could do to find out.
Question straightened up from the desk, and rolled his shoulders to try and stretch them out. There was no way around it.
He was going to have to get more...direct from here on out.
.......
"What does a dead man do for twenty years?" Gawain froze with a potato wedge half-raised to his shoulder at the question, and Bran - unwilling to wait for her snack - leaned her head down to snatch it up anyway. Gawain turned his yellow LED eyes over to Question, who had planted himself in the chair across the table without so much of a 'hello', and tilted his head.
"...I'm sorry," He apologized. "But I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"I know you do." Question leaned one elbow on the table. Bran nudged Gawain's still-raised hand, hoping for more potatoes, and the hero absently picked up another wedge to feed to her. "I know most people believe the 'advanced AI' cover story, but I'm not most people. I know you're a ghost possessing an armored suit like that old anime." The potato wedge vanished, and Question wondered if the little ghost was actually eating it, or just storing it for later.
That was a mystery for another time, regardless.
Gawain had turned to face him fully, now, and his two other ghostly companions were now peeking out of hiding from behind his shoulders. They weren't hostile, but their stares were, nonetheless, intense, and Question smiled behind his mask. He knew he had their full attention, now.
"How did you find out?" Gawain asked, keeping his voice low.
"I saw you from the ground in that fight with Mr. Sorcerer Superior, Magnus Creed." Question replied. "You ran into that warding slip like a bird into a clean window. A robot wouldn't have been stopped by mere paper and superstition." Gawain tilted his head slightly to one side.
"Some superstitions hurt." He argued, just the slightest bit defensive. "...what was your question, again?"
"What does a dead man do for twenty years?" Question asked. "There's a two decade gap between your presumed death and your reappearance. You could stand to work on that secret identity, by the way." He advised. "Someone's going to notice your resemblance to a dead guy from twenty years ago, if you ever let down your hair." Gawain's LED eyes narrowed, and one of the spirits - Chopper, the one with the upright spines - hissed in response.
Vixen walked by with John Stewart at her side, and both Chopper and Gawain made a visible effort to drop any outward signs of irritation. Question remained where he was. People were used to seeing him tense and suspicious, by now. It wouldn't raise a single eyebrow.
"...I was lost." Gawain spoke up quietly once Vixen and John had passed out of earshot. "I woke up in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, and I just couldn't get out. Not for a while."
"You were lost in a forest for twenty years?" Even Question sounded skeptical. "I've seen what you're capable of. You should have been able to handle a little thing like being lost."
"It was ten years," Gawain retorted sharply. Bran raided his plate for the remaining potato wedges. "And I wasn't just...born being able to do that stuff. I had to grow into it. I had to learn." A strange gust of air blew past the table, scattering someone's forgotten paper plate and napkin to the floor, before Gawain unclenched his fists, and visibly calmed down. Question still didn't move.
"Death...does things to you." Gawain lowered his voice again. "To your mind. You can't think straight for...a long time - and that's if you're lucky." He lowered his hands to the table, and Bran automatically wound herself around one arm with a pleased sound. "I found my way out of the forest after ten yes, and then I went...home. To Tempo."
"Your parents had moved away by then." Question knew. He knew how the story of the living family had played out, from there. "Your brother was living with your uncle, and your friends were off at college." Gawain's shoulders drooped, and the third spirit - Griflet, if he remembered right - patted at the side of his helmet sympathetically. Chopper was still glaring at him.
"They had." Gawain made no effort to hide the disappointment in his voice. "I guess I couldn't fault them for not wanting to stay in town after all they went through, but back then, I didn't know it had been ten years. It only felt like a few days, to me."
"That must have been difficult." Question said, and he meant it. Sympathy wasn't really his thing, but Gawain was being cooperative, so it was the least he could do. "And the other ten?"
"I was hiding." Gawain laughed humorlessly. "I somehow convinced myself that my family-...that my brother, and my uncle, would be afraid of me, if they saw me like that, and I just...never came forward." He shrugged. "I just sort of watched, and listened, and followed them for another ten years, and I thought that was pretty good, you know?
"I couldn't interact with them, sure, but at least I could still see them. It was...better than nothing." The hero fell silent, for a few moments, and then looked Question in the eye. Or...as close as he could get. The featureless mask tended to throw off people's frame of reference for facial features. "What are you going to do now?"
"Absolutely nothing." Question casually leaned back in his own chair. "I've already put the pieces together. This was just the last piece I needed to finish the story." He stood up, and pushed the chair in under the table. "This time, I just wanted to satisfy my own curiosity." Gawain seemed surprised, and remained sitting as Question walked out of the cafeteria.
He could feel four pairs of eyes burning into his back, but for once, being watched didn't bother him. Curiosity killed the cat, they said, but satisfaction brought it back, and Question was very much satisfied with this answer.
Now, he could focus on more important matters...like the long-ignored connection between Girl Scout cookie sales and the appearance of crop circles in Midwest America.
While my motivation is at an alltime low atm, I have started writing on a small story about my WoW char Eluaria and her experience with Uuna. I know doing stuff like this is a bit problematic but it really fits and I feel good doing it!
I just wanted to let you all know of this crossover fanfic I’ve started based on a roleplay I’ve been writing with my buddy @yamishadowluver13 for nearly 4 years! We both have fallen in love with the story and wanted to share it with others. We’d really appreciate it if you gave it a shot!
It is an honest crossover from hell though. You can expect to see a lot of fandoms and ships represented/mentioned. (though, most of our ships are crack ships that would never happen in canon)
' Do you know what the hardest part about being a king is?
Doing what's right, no matter what. '
----
(TW: implied main character death, PTSD, chronic pain)
~
He drove himself to a pounding headache. Literally.
Ever since the Crash, he's found his energy to race... limited.
He would rant to himself: "hooh- what'sth, hehah- WRONG with you?! Back in the day, hoohoo, I could go on for HOURSTH!"
It infuriated him, made him want to pull at the little tufts of hair of his royal persona. Was he getting old? Was he losing his shine?
No... no, he knew what it was. The root of- of everything.
It was true, back in TurboTime, he could go on until the Arcade opened, and continue after that.
But also, that back then there was an Arcade to speak of, and his code innards weren't all over the place within the programming of the game, back then they weren't corrupt beyond his own capabilities to put everything back together.
And now? Now, it hurt. His whole body hurt. Somedays there was a flare up worse than the others, this was one of them. And the angrier he got about it, refusing to let go, the more pain he was in until he was too exhausted to try to soothe things somewhat within the Code Room.
Finally, he gave up.
King Candy collapsed on his bed with a pathetic 'thumph' , his crown rolling off of his head and clunking to the ground. Oh, whatever, he'll order Sour Bill to get that for him later...
He curled up into a ball, hugging whatever he could of his aching form.
He cringed as he glitched, a pang of pain shot through his small form; gritting his teeth, he slowly opened his eyes to look at one of his hands; not the well-presented hand of a monarch, but grey skinned... wearing a red and white jumpsuit.
He groaned, whimpered pitifully as his form came undone for a few seconds, separathing into thousands of 0s and 1s, bits of pixels expanding and retracting, he hugged himself tighter, as if trying to keep himself intact.
A flashback, of how it felt... a hot, burning pain, reminiscent of when he was flying towards....
No.
Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it, you fool!
It wasn't supposed to go like that.
don't think about it.
He didn't want to die. It was not his time. He wasn't ready.
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.
It was all their fault. They ruined his game.
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.
She ruined his game. And now she was gone.
So why was his conscience heavy at all? Only because now there's a corpse of her, a reminder, still running around that looks like that?
But a better question was, why was he still thinking about her? When it was him who was suffering right now? She was not important. She was a threat that no longer existed, as it should be.
Another shot of pain, completely scrambling his focus on his bitterness towards ghosts of his past, and bringing him back to the present.
In between feeling his body come apart into pixels, he couldn't help but giggle. No- this wasn't funny! It wasn't even on purpose! Just a bad habit...
"No-! Hoo- heheha! Ow.. Sthop it.." he'd mumble to himself.
Another g̴̥̎̋l̵͙͓̚i̸͕̬̊̓t̷̖̮̀c̸̟͔͑͝h̵̰̰̐, this one thankfully painless, and his hand- his, err, everything, was back to normal... well, King Candy-type normal.
It all still hurt, still ached.. but it was faint... tolerable. He didn't dare move, except for the involuntary chuckles that made him wince, didn't dare think- well... perhaps he could think about a thing or two. Happy thoughts! Trophies, winning, eating, being alive...
Ugh... this was boring already. Did not go well with his overall rush of energy. How long did he have to wait this out?
He had royal duties to attend to! Like... telling Sour Bill what to do for him, and sitting on the throne looking regal.
...
Oh, who was he kidding? The more impatient he grew about being active, the more this would likely continue. Stubborn as he was, he could not win against his perpetually-damaged code. He had to stay in bed until his little henchman checked on him.
"Turbo-tasthtic..." he mumbled sardonically, sighing in defeat.
The New One had arrived in a great explosion that rocked the island.
The Beast had not cared for it, at first, choosing to slumber as the Endermen crowded around the crater, and gazed down curiously at the being curled up inside. They were splattered in something vivid and blue, and clutching a limb torn from another creature. One among them attempted to touch the creature, anxiously teleporting at the first sign of life, but it barely reacted.
They looked similar to the Impervious One they sometimes caught a glimpse of - gliding around the outskirt islands, building bridges, and always, always watching them. Perhaps they were the same? He had changed since his arrival. His eyes lost their darkness, and he gained the power to teleport, as they did. He did not seem happy.
But the Impervious One did not come to the main island, the Beast did not tolerate them when they flew too close, and the Endermen could not build a bridge without the Beast’s knowledge. What were they to do?
In the end, the whispered consensus turned to trying to help the New One themselves. Perhaps, if they could heal them in some way, they could reach the Impervious One on their own, and get out of the Beast’s reach. There was no where in the End where the Beast could not reach, but for so long, it had only cared about this one, central island.
Anywhere beyond its edge would have been safer by comparison.
None of them held great amounts of magic - only the strongest among them could leave this place, and they never returned - but together, they were able to heal the New One. Their efforts turned his eye and his skin pale, as they were, but curiously, only on one side. He awoke, confused and dazed, and did not understand them; he clutched the severed limb in his hands as if it were a precious block and tried to hide from them among the end stone debris.
They tried to quiet him. He was healed! He was alive! Please, be silent! But their attempts were in vain.
The Beast awoke from the noise he made, and enforced the silence herself.
......
The Endermen watched the New One with pity as he shuffled among them. He spoke often, but only to himself - they could not understand the language of the Overworlders, nor did he seem to understand them, despite his transformation. He still clutched the limb he had been found with, though it had long since decayed into bone. None could take it from him, and few had tried.
Sometimes, he cried out with purpose - in fear, and in desperation - and the Impervious One would fly past. He heard his kindred, but could not cross the void without drawing the Beast’s ire. The Endermen braced against the burn of his painful gaze, and dropped chorus fruit in his path, when they could find it.
Perhaps, one day, the New One would escape the island, and find some way to carve out a life like the Impervious One....not perfect, and not happy, but better than death, and better than purgatory.
Until the day that changed, he would be one of them.
((This is actually two previous prompts from the Super Ghost AU, smooshed together and quickly bridged to make a single coherent ficlet. Realized I hadn’t posted it here, so here it is!))
Gawain clawed his fingers into the wall, sinking into the dark, fleshy substance with a soft squish, and dragged himself up another few inches. His legs had sustained no damage, and yet they refused to hold his weight. Every time he let go of the wall, they buckled like loose cables, and sent him crashing to the floor.
His progress along the hall was marked in splatters of red - growing from tiny droplets to larger smears, and imprints of his knee guards and shin armor. They were bloody references to an injury that had never healed, and had followed him even into the afterlife. Gawain ignored them with a steel resolve.
With a frustrated snarl, the robotic hero let go of the wall with one hand, and struck his own legs in frustration.
“Why.” SMACK. “Won’t.” SMACK. “You.” SMACK. “WORK.” SMACK. The joints wobbled, and threatened to collapse again, and Gawain snapped his hand back to the wall to keep from falling. Something red smeared across the wall beneath his palm, and Gawain fixed his eyes single-mindedly on the end of the hallway, and the sounds of battle that could still be heard.
He didn’t have time for this. His friends were in danger - the world was in danger! He needed a distraction. He needed-
An Imperium soldier came around the corner, fleeing the beating its compatriots were receiving in the other room. They stopped short when they saw the third intruder - staggered against the wall, and seemingly covered in blood - and whispered a curse in their language. Gawain’s eyes snapped up to the soldier, and he staggered forward with a new resolve.
This would do.
The Imperium soldier tried to raise their weapon, but Gawain threw himself forward, and let the weight of his metal body carry both of them to the ground. It was quickly kicked out of reach in the scuffle, but with his legs still refusing to cooperate, Gawain quickly started to lose his advantage. The Imperium soldier managed to roll on top of him, and pinned one of his arms beneath their foot before they sunk their claws into the mesh beneath his chin, and began to pull. He hadn't been built with pain sensors, but Gawain bucked anyway, and reached up to try and pry the claws away with his free hand.
When he failed to get a grip, and the cables in his neck began to strain, Gawain gave up attempting to free himself, and tried to activate the taser built into his arm. The panel meant to open whined, but did not move, and the hero made a desperate, frustrated sound before slamming his arm against the ground a few times. Why wasn't anything working right, damnit?!
With a final smack against the ground, the taser unit jumped to life, and Gawain jabbed its prongs up into the torso of the Imperium soldier trying to rip off his head. The unfortunate alien let out an unholy shriek as the electricity coursed through it, and quickly collapsed, unconscious. The taser sparked once more before deactivating with a sad little whine, and sinking back into Gawain’s forearm. The robotic hero made a sound like air blown through gritted teeth as he flexed the fingers of that hand, as if making sure everything was back in place.
“I guess that counts as a field test.” He muttered. Hopefully the rest of his armaments would work a bit more reliably. Pushing himself up to his knees, Gawain dragged one leg underneath him, and stood up before he could second-guess himself. His leg held up, as did its twin, and the hero made a sound akin to air hissed through teeth. The red splatters that haunted his vision faded away as he hurried onward down the hall, renewed in his determination.
Later, he would have to deal with the 'technical issues'...but not right now.
He had left home in search of treasure, armed only with a map, a rumor, and three loyal friends.
Now he had no map, and no friends, and all the treasure he could have ever dreamed of...and he’d throw it all into the void if it would take him back to that little house on the lakeshore, with his friends still by his side.
Gawain vindictively took the last bite from the beetroot in his hand, and then tossed the remains over the side of the End ship to the void below. He kicked aside the empty shell of the Shulker that had once guarded the main deck, and rolled his shoulders to make sure that the Elytra he’d claimed from the ship’s treasure room was settled in place over the shoulders of his diamond armor.
Decked in diamonds from head to toe, and rippling with the glow of enchantments....god, what a sight he made. His childhood self would have been beaming - he’d once dreamed of having gear this cool. They all had...
....but it hadn’t been worth what he’d lost to earn that dream. It never would be.
Stepping off the edge of the ship, Gawain let his weight of his find pull him down towards the void, and felt the Elytra open to catch him in a glide. He set his sights on the tiny cabin on the island in the distance, carved out from the endstone and purpur blocks scavenged from the cities, and began the long flight back.
He hoped they hadn’t returned while he’d been out. He knew it would take them a while to find a new stronghold, and a new portal to this damned place, but who knew how much time had passed already? There were no stars to track, here, and his clock had long since stopped working. If he were lucky, they hadn’t succeeded just yet, and he still had time to pull together all that he needed.
The armor set he’d found on this scavenging run made for three in total, all at full durability and strength. They might be a bit big, but anything was better than the iron he’d seen them wearing. He’d completed the dive tower last night (had it even been night?) and now that he had the last armor set, all he had to do was sit and wait for them to come back...if they came back.
Then, just maybe, they could all get out of here alive.
