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softquietsteadylove · 5 months

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Can you write a story which thena and gil a childhood best friend but one day gil got kidnapped and everyone assume his dead but not thena her family even sent her to a mental institution to make her better, Year after year past she still can't accept gil is gone, then one day Gil appear in front of her out of nowhere and was like "Sorry to keep you waiting"

"Hi, I'm Gil."

She could always remember him being like that--so warm and open and inviting. She had met him as just a little boy, her age, maybe a year older. And when kids are young like that, one year can be a huge difference to overcome, but young Gil had come right up to her, a gap between his front teeth and the biggest smile she had ever seen.

"Wanna be friends?"

The would become the very best of friends. Always together, always doing something, or nothing, so long as they didn't have to be apart for it. He would play anything with her, even if it was a game 'for girls', or 'babies', like her brother would say it was. Gil would collect butterflies with her, or help her learn to braid hair, or set up elaborate tea parties. They did everything together.

Even as they got older, and even as they gained other friends, nothing came between them. Ikaris still always insisted it was dumb that Gil liked playing with his baby sister more than him, but neither of them cared. And Sersi and Makkari never minded Gil playing with them.

Not even starting school divided them. They weren't exactly in the same class, but recess and lunch were their little moments of reprieve. Gil would share the snacks and lunch he got as a growing boy, and Thena would happily trade away the parts of her lunch she didn't like but knew Gil enjoyed. Everything else could wait, whether it was school, or their own circles of friends.

They were barely 11 years old when Gil went missing.

"Hi sweetie," she could remember a police officer kneeling down in front of her. "Do you remember the last time you saw your friend?"

"Lunch," she had answered, feeling completely numb. She had already assumed something was wrong when Gil was nowhere to be found when it was time to walk home together. "We always have lunch together."

"And do you always walk home the same way?"

There were plenty of questions like that. Thena could remember Gil's family and hers mulling around their home, police officers walking in and out all evening. Gil was missing--just vanished in the few minutes no one from the school had eyes on him and before she rounded the corner from her classroom at the back of the building to join him.

If she had been with him just a minute earlier, it could have saved him.

Everyone told her not to think that way, of course. She was put in counselling, but her determination that Gil was still out there somewhere was 'something to keep an eye on'. The word 'obsessed' was tossed around plenty as well, but Thena had more important things to worry about: Gil.

Makkari and Sersi were worried too, but their support exceeded their concerns. They supported her when she said she wanted to go into criminal psychology. They supported her obsession with true crime and morbid and macabre curiosities. Even if they were worried, they understood why she was possessed by the idea of understanding what would make a person do something like that. And more importantly, learning about what would happen during, and then after the abduction.

For all those calling it a sick obsession, it served her well. It drove her like nothing else. She excelled, advanced quickly and aggressively in all she did. Who cared what the reason was? At least she was doing something, unlike everyone who had inevitably given up on him.

The officers who had hounded her with questions?--gone. The judge who deemed the case cold?--nothing. Her own family--Gil's own family! Ikaris believed it too, but every time he tried to tell her to give up for her own well being they just got into a huge, violent fight over it. So he stopped trying to convince her.

Once she had enough knowledge to begin her own investigation, then it was a bridge too far. The worry could no longer wait, and everyone decided that she needed help. Sersi and Makkari pleaded her case, but her parents deemed her mentally unfit. Even Ikaris stood by as she was hauled away into the back of a van, kicking and screaming for all of the neighbours to whisper about.

Let them watch, she figured. It was a good opportunity for her to remind them that they had failed an 11 year old boy because of their blind eyes.

"Go on."

Thena lifts her eyes and then looks back down at her lap. They ask her this every year, around the time Gil disappeared. There are plenty of other routine appointments through the year, but they only bring up Gil and her past at this certain time.

If she just admits that there's no way he's still alive, and that her obsession is a coping mechanism, then she gets to go home.

"He's alive," she claims outright, nailing another stake in her coffin. Her eyes are clear as she looks at the psychiatrist who then scribbles something in her notes. Thena narrows her eyes at her, "I know he is."

"Tell me more about Gil," the psych asks of her, switching tactics instead of locking horns with her. Not that it gets anyone anywhere.

Thena sighs. She has nothing better to do, staring out the window of the office and at the leaves changing. "Gil was...the best."

"Gil was sweet. He was sweet in a way boys usually aren't, especially so young. But he liked playing quiet games or drawing or playing house more than he did roughhousing. Other kids called him names for it, of course, but he didn't care."

She smiles.

"We would play house, and he would braid my hair and wave me off to work," she laughs at the memory of how they thought the world worked back then. "I would come home and he would have a beautiful pretend meal set out for us. He would put on whatever music we could find and ask me to dance for our anniversary."

"That sounds very sweet."

Thena glares at the woman for interrupting her blissful trip down memory lane. But she continues. "Gil was always sweet. Even when we got older, started school, he never stopped spending time with me even though I was a girl, or I was younger than him. He would defend me from older children and I would defend him from just about anyone else."

"He wanted to be a chef," Thena says, and her throat tightens and she chokes on her air. Because he would have become such a brilliant chef, and he would have that smile he always had, and she doesn't even know what he looks like now.

"It sounds like you two loved each other very much."

Thena doesn't bother answering that. No one understands, anyway. Everyone likes to think of their friendship as this precious thing of the past, like they were such angelic things. Everyone acts as if her memories of Gil are all she has left of him.

"Thena," the therapist shifts in her seat as she tries to breach more dangerous territory. "I know how much you love Gil. Can you tell me how this time of year makes you feel?"

Not this bullshit. Thena resists the urge to roll her eyes, looking out the window again. The leaves are changing, and it makes her think of the leaf Gil saved for her the morning he disappeared. He gave it to her before school, claiming he'd never seen a leaf the colour of her hair before.

She still has it. It's one of her few possessions, pressed into an old and worn copy of Robert Frost work. She sighs, "Gil liked poetry."

The therapist resigns herself to being ignored.

"He liked making things rhyme, rudimentary literary devices, jokes and brain teasers," Thena smiles again, now just speaking aloud to herself. "I told him he could be a poet. He said it wouldn't pay well, and then how would we do things like pay mortgages and have two cars?"

"He really thought of everything."

He did. Gil was very forward thinking as a child. He always considered every possible angle of something, despite looking more like a kid who would act first and think later.

All the more reason to believe that he wouldn't have just wandered off with someone, or that he would have found a way to escape if he did get plucked off the street somehow.

"Thena-"

"I believe that's our time," she cuts the therapist off, standing and beginning to walk out the door on her own. She's been here long enough that they aren't quite as strict with her.

"Indeed," the psych stands as well, at least giving her the respect of sending her off properly. "I'll see you next week."

"Can't wait," Thena mutters as she heads for the common area. Sometimes she wonders if prison would be better than this place. At least prisoners are allowed to keep things in their cells.

It'll be winter soon, and she'll think about Gil, wonder if he has to endure winters in some terrible little cellar. Or maybe he did manage to get away, because he was always clever. Maybe he managed to find a new life for himself somewhere.

After a trauma like that, maybe his mentality was so affected he wouldn't be her Gil anymore anyway. A morbid thought, but she didn't study psychology for some delusion that he could be completely unaffected by it all.

She has been in this mental institution for years now, too. Her parents don't want anything to do with her, and she could be released if they weren't funnelling money in to keep her here. All they want is to hear that she's forgotten about Gil completely.

Well, it's never going to happen, so her parents can go to hell.

Thena arrives in the common area, devoid of anyone else this close to meal time. The food is awful anyway. She would rather starve and think about Gil's cookies he would make every winter.

She leans on the windowsill, looking out at the trees. "These woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep."

"And miles to go before I sleep."

She doesn't turn to look at who's joining her. She doesn't much care, and she doesn't recognise the voice, although it is familiar.

"And miles to go before I sleep."

It is familiar. It's soft, and gentle, deeper than she imagined it. Soft steps come closer to her.

"And be one traveller, long I stood," it continues until it's right behind her, "and looked down one as far I could."

"To where it bent in the undergrowth," Thena finishes and frowns. She knows why she knows this poem, and plenty of others from the same volume. But it's rare to find someone else who does.

"Your hair's so long, now."

She stares at the window as gentle hands run through her hair, mindful not to hurt her as they start to wind the locks together. Her throat tightens and she chokes on her air, "y-you still remember how to braid?"

He just chuckles, and it's when she hears the hint of his laughter that she realises this is real. She hasn't finally succumbed to this hell around her and lost it.

She turns. Her hair is half braided down her back, but Gilgamesh is standing there, still just a year older than her, but looking completely unlike he once did. But it's definitely Gil. "You're here."

"It's our anniversary," he smiles at her like when they were children, playing house in her backyard. He holds his hands out, "sorry to keep you waiting."

#Thenamesh AU #honey this is a beautiful prompt #and oh my god this is so sad #but a happy ending!#Little baby Gil and Thena tho?#Ikaris is like playing house is for girls and little babies!#little Gil is like well my wife is going to work while I clean the house all day!#he makes huge feasts for them and pretends to drink a beer from his big grownup coffee mug #I won't be touching on this a lot for obvious reasons #Gil got abducted and kept in a dank little cellar #he had a rug and a little mattress and got fed #he would braid the tassles of the rug and think of Thena #he cooperated slowly gaining trust until he was allowed upstairs #then to go out of the house sometimes #then more often #then alone #until eventually he managed to escape #by that time he was several states over and had no records of who he was with him #but he manged to get back and the first thing he did was ask Where's Thena?#he was furious but he went right there to see her #and now they can get married and have a mortgage and two cars so Thena can go to work and I'm emotional

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djosephqueery · 1 year

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Robin's joined the mix!

They're here to judge you.

pspspsps @corrodedcoughin look it's Them

#Eddie put her in the Scoops uniform cause he knew it'd piss her off #then he HAD to make a matching outfit for puppet steve #Neither Robin nor Steve are happy about this #Eddie gets Robin back on his side by letting her use Little Robin #Steve isn't allowed to touch any of the puppets #Steve is petitioning for eddie to AT LEAST give puppet steve a nail bat #and eddie can't deny he likes the sound of that #he is a weak weak man #and so am I #puppet steddie #stranger things #Len doodles

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pop-punklouis · 12 days

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#ngl but after listening to half of tortured poets #there is nothing great about it #but it also isn’t objectively bad #it’s just there #like jeremy renner in any movie he’s ever been in #like. this is what we as music consumers get for allowing everything she touches to turn to gold #because it has dramatically affected her work #we have seen such a steep decline in her craft since folklore and evermore peaked #like there’s nothing interesting here!! the lyricism isn’t doing anything!! the production is bland!! (k*ll jack antonoff)#her vocals never reach their full potential and stay in a mid range for almost the entirety of the record!!#and nothing makes me come back for more it’s like a 17 song long podcast without any fun hooks or even half-way poetic verses #every song that is half way decent i recognize that aaron dressner was a writer on it #that should tell you something rip #idk it’s just!! there lmao #maybe i’ll think differently when i listen to it more but for now it’s not doing much for me dawg

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nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius · 11 months

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The freezing metal against his palms is almost a relief, for once. The uncomfortable sensation draws him out of his thoughts, grounding him back in the real world.

Hours upon hours he had spent silently hoping, begging anything out there that might listen to let his brother still be alive.

Now, Crosshair almost wishes that Tech had been killed after all.

He still remembers so viscerally how swiftly his free will had been snatched away from him, before he had even noticed it was gone. As if he were nothing more than a mindless clanker. It’s one thing for it to have happened to him, but the thought of it being forced upon Tech, innocent, infuriatingly selfless Tech - his hands curl into fists, fingernails digging into his palms as he fights off a sudden wave of nausea.

Crosshair’s only hope is that whatever they’ve done to him is stronger than the inhibitor chips were. That if the real Tech is still in there somewhere, he isn’t aware of what’s happening to him. Because if he is, if he knows what he’s being forced to do… it’s worse than any torture that Hemlock could devise.

The tightness in his chest is growing again. He swallows, pushing past the constriction to force himself to speak. “Omega?”

The little girl shows no sign that she’s even heard him. She hasn’t moved from her curled-up position since the door sealed behind them - arms locked around her knees, frozen to the spot except for the trembling of her shoulders.

There’s a part of him that wants nothing more than to retreat back into his own shell, to shut Omega out along with the rest of the world, and yet he can’t. Something about the way her breath hitches with barely stifled sobs twists his gut into knots.

“Omega,” he hisses, leaning forward to give her shoulder a wary nudge.

There’s silence, before Omega finally unfurls herself. For a moment, she just gazes up at him, despairing eyes glistening with tears. And then, she surges forward, flinging her arms around his neck with a sudden reckless abandon.

It takes a lot to surprise Crosshair, but that certainly does the trick. He stiffens, his arms automatically straightening in front of him - just short of touching Omega. She’s crying properly now, burying her face in his shoulder as she sobs.

Should he say something? What is there to say? He knows better than to lie, to assure that everything will be alright. What’s the point in telling her something that both of them know not to be true?

Hunter would know what to do, they all would, but he’s not like them. He’s a ticking time bomb, a fractured, savage beast held together by fraying threads.

And yet he’s all that she has left.

There’s nothing that he can do for his brother, not now. But there might be something he can do for Omega.

Tentatively, he wraps an arm around her back, holding her closer against him. The other hand mechanically combs through her curls, a wooden attempt at replicating the way Hunter used to soothe him.

Whatever he’s doing, it seems to be working. Gradually, Omega’s breathing slows, her sobs fading to dejected sniffles. She makes no move to raise her head from his shoulder, still clinging on tight to him.

Crosshair is her only anchor in the storm, now. Him, the last person in the galaxy she should trust to keep her safe.

And yet, for some unfathomable reason, she does.

Promises can be dangerous things, especially ones that have no guarantee of being kept. Crosshair knows that all too well.

But danger has never put him off before, has it?

The promise that he makes to himself in that moment is a silent one. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re still imprisoned in a cell with no conceivable way of escaping, or that all it takes is one word to make him disappear, or that his own brother is one of the ones keeping him trapped as a lab rat.

All the same, something seems to shift inside him. The pain hasn’t gone away, but now there’s something else alongside it. A fire that died long ago, and is only just starting to glimmer back to life.

It’s him that got Omega into this hellhole in the first place, and it’s going to be him that gets her out of here alive. And after he does, nothing is ever going to hurt her again.

Whatever it takes.

#MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA #this has been in my brain for aaaaages #enjoy gentler crosshair while it lasts #the conversation after this is… interesting #she’s tried to touch him a few times before this and he’s gone from immediately lashing out at her #to grudgingly allowing it but snapping the second she gets a bit too close #but now he’s just like fuck it. i need a hug too #he has No Idea what he’s doing and it would be kinda funny #hunter also had No Idea but he’s more naturally warm than cross is so it was easier #writing their development is going to be so much fun aaaaah #AND WHEN WAS THE LAST WHATEVER IT TAKES????#WHEN HE TOLD HIMSELF HE WASN’T GOING TO LET HER GET CLOSE #AND NOW LOOK #also i just think it’s neat that he believes he deserved the brainwashing but tech doesn’t #he loves them he really does #keep an eye on the ‘i’d rather he was dead than brainwashed’ thing it might come back later ;)#also also #notice how tech is ‘his brother’ but omega’s never ‘his sister’?#let’s see how long it takes before that final barrier comes down #wip

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pastafossa · 1 year

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Hey Pasta! It turns out I'm addicted to drawing Jane and Matt so here they are taking a little stroll and having a chat. I thought it was cute and wanted to share!

WAIT I LOVE THIS THOUGH????? I LOVE THIS I LOVE IT I LOVE IT

LOVE

SO LET'S FUCKING TALK OK

Matt's grey suit? CHECK i love his suits leave me alone BUT I also love the little touch here like the WAY he's holding his cane, I've seen him hold it like this sometimes. My theory is it's when he's comfortable while moving and doesn't need a super tight grip on it cause he has a general idea of what's around or he has a good guide (AND JANE IS HERE SO IT FITS), and I have zero idea if this is the right reasoning, but either way you've got it drawn in here and that was a lovely touch.

Do I dare talk about his perma-stubble???? HIS HAIR??? HIS SMILE AND THE HAPPY BODY LANGUAGE i'm hopeless help me

I think his suit makes a good contrast to Jane here too which i LOVE, LOOK AT THOSE CONVERSE, hair down and relaxed and casual. As much as we see it in TRT (simply because that's where the plot leads), her getting to relax and just have a fun walk and be casual is not something she gets to do often. She's incredibly professional looking when meeting clients and then she's usually wearing cheaper, easy-to-dirty-up clothes when tracking in case she needs to crawl into down a grate cause half the time she's gotta chuck those clothes out. I genuinely enjoy seeing her like this in art, seeing her relaxed in clothes she might actually ENJOY wearing as opposed to necessity, seeing her happy and just chilling and getting a slice of Something Normal, especially with Matt who's kinda in the same boat (not style wise but just in Happy Normal Things territory).

AND HER KEY IS THERE

JUST

LOOK AT THEM SO HAPPY

MY BABIES 😭

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for coming to show me this! I LOVE IT SO MUCH