Reviews :
chuckiboo : Yeah, friend, I'm going to be honest, the next 10ish chapters are all chapters I've written through a blur of tears. It's been almost 4-5 years of planning and plotting all of this sorrow and having it all officially real and realized is the coolest, hardest most visceral experience I've gone through, yet. This story is about to kick me in the pants, I mean really lmao. I'm so grateful you're here reading! There will be light eventually, maybe a different color than previously, but light nonetheless.
Burgie : I know, I feel awful doing you guys so dirty on such a romantic evening. It had to be done tho I'm clawing through this trauma face first so we can get to the juicier bits lol
Song Listened To :
Repeat Until Death by Novo Amor
*Chapter 150*
Kepa lifted in gentle, prickled confusion at the sound of a few small knocks on her front door. She flattened her ears, grunted to a stand off of the curl she had, buried deep in the common room's couch, though as she pressed closer to her front door, her heart began to jump with the hope that maybe Gideon had finally come to his senses and was ready to solve the fight they had previously had. It was sunrise, the game sung with sea birds nearby, the ocean waves pressed on in methodical rhythm outside. With the unlock and soft swing of the light house's heavy front door, she almost choked in mortified surprise to see Lash and Mara loosely stood with their hands in the gape of their jacket's side pockets. They looked entirely rocked off of the face of Arcade, exhausted, eyes swollen, wet and sunken, Kepa froze in terror, due to the wall of remorseful energy that hit her head on, she sagged her ears and tail in the spike of cold dread and uttered a nasally mumble.
"...Guys?" Kepa staggered sorrowfully, she shook her head and broadened the gape of the front door, "What's wrong? What happened?"
"Kepa, we need to talk," Lash murmured, his voice was far more clogged and raspy that Kepa had ever heard, the golden color in his eyes were replaced with a very bright, stark, scary dark blue, and it was here did Kepa grimace in terrified nervousness and shake her head.
"Wh-what... What's going on?" Kepa staggered as her eyes tossed between Lash and Mara, they looked far more disheveled than they had ever looked before.
"C'mon, come sit," Lash whispered as the three filed into Kepa's home, sealed them inside with a shut and lock. Though Kepa ushered the two to her kitchen island, she remained standing. Lash squeezed his swollen, blue eyes shut, grappled for a nearby stool and gingerly rubbed Kepa's shoulder, "Please, sit... You need to sit for this."
"You're scaring me," Kepa whimpered as big tears welled in her eyes, the sheer amount of sorrow radiating from Mara and Lash, as well as their own continued tears, had her now feeling her heart race with refreshed loss she was happy to have gotten rid of, or so she thought. Kepa shook her head and grimaced in the rise of wanting to become animated, "Where's Gideon? Is he okay? Is he alive?"
"H-He's alive," Lash assured quickly with a nod, and though this notion had Kepa's heightened tendencies quelling as she sat down, he squeezed his eyes shut and shakily uttered a whimper of proving that he was going to likely come unglued, shortly. He tried to clear his throat, Mara lovingly rubbed his back and covered her face, "This is probably one of the hardest things I've had to do, Kepa. To sit here and have this conversation with you."
"Where is he?" Kepa urged nervously as she shook her head, Lash loudly sighed through his mouth and desperately tried to keep from audibly weeping.
"He's left the Arcade, he went to the internet," Lash squeaked, he staggered a sharp inhale and covered his eyes as the grief now got the better of him and he coughed a soft cry into the room. Although messily, he did what he could to collect himself and finish his statement, "He's gone to compete in Game Over."
Kepa sagged and felt a cold wash of harrowing regret hit her square between the eyes, she shook her head and now had no clue what to say, how to move on, or if to even attempt to swallow this information as fact. Mara firmly looked off with a tight grimace of crying she also tried to conceal, though it was clear the three were on their way to becoming unhinged with full sorrow, unabated.
"Can we call him? Find him before it's too late?" Kepa staggered in terror as huge tears spilled down her cheeks; having already been crying, due to their fight, she replayed every single last word she had said to him, mean, unforgiving notions she was now well aware were branded wounds on their hearts, vicious reminders of the last thing Gideon's ears heard before he vanished into the night, forever.
"He left his phone in Sugar Rush," Lash whimpered, his dark blue eyes peered into Kepa's with full desperation as he lovingly gripped her hands, across the corner of the counter they huddled at. Lash squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head and gripped her little hands harder than he ever had before, "Kepa, there is a world of information about Gideon that you don't know, a lot that we need to fill you in on... Stuff he was amping himself up to properly tell you, but obviously didn't. Before I tell you everything, can you tell me when you last saw him and what was said?"
"W-We fought," Kepa furrowed her eyebrows in full anguish and now understood that she had likely played a part in this tipping point. She coughed a cry and covered her mouth in dreaded realization, "H-He told me that he loved me..."
"Y-You reciprocated, yeah?" Mara's whimpery voice begged, Kepa grit her fangs and grappled her forehead in full remorse, to which Mara looked off and began to gently pace a few feet away from Lash and Kepa, so to cry into her hands with her back turned.
"You guys fought over his confession?" Lash staggered, Kepa coughed a small cry and looked down to her's and Lash's hands that had reconjoined, she squeezed him in full, terrified desperation.
"He said he loved me, and... I-I couldn't reply, I couldn't," Kepa squeaked in the stagger of her gentle cries, tears sagged down her neck and into her shirt, the three were dripping with it.
"You didn't feel the same way? Y-You don't love him in return?" Lash asked in defeated disbelief, Kepa shook her head and felt this dire situation catch her in a chokehold.
"I do, I do, I just... He blindsided me with all of this, I had no clue this whole Valentine's Day existed," Kepa diligently explained, "Had I known such an important day of celebrating love was in his sights, I probably would've done a bit more mental and emotional preparing, on my end."
"What is there to prepare for?" Mara suddenly erupted, feeling protective of Gideon, she shook her head and gestured to her chest, "You and Uncle Gideon are always staring headlong into the beams of rosy headlights, the stupid amount of googly-romantic situations you guys are constantly in, you can't sit here and tell me you don't love him!"
"Mara," Lash murmured in gentle shushing.
"No, I'm pissed!" Mara loudly complained.
"Uncle?" Kepa questioned sorrowfully, confusedly, "I-I do, I just can't say it."
"Why not!" Mara shouted in unhinged, sorrowful frustration, to which Kepa flattened her ears with the challenge and clenched her fists.
"Because I'll molt if I do!" Kepa yelled, Mara and Lash froze in surprise, "He's written in my own future, he's a permanent part of me, if I even SAY the words collectively, out loud, I will molt. I'm just... Scared, I'm not ready, I DO have that feeling for him, but I'm so scared to physically commit myself to the notion of it all that I chickened out. Especially due to being blindsided! Molting in his name is permanent, that's essentially a code swap. I just got scared, it happened all at once!"
"Did you tell him all of this?" Lash worried, Kepa shook her head and gestured towards their closed front door.
"He didn't give me the full opportunity, he dropped it on me like a BOMB, and then when I panicked and tried to reign in the bomb I dropped BACK on him, by not verbally returning the feelings, he got really upset and left," Kepa staggered through her crying as she grimaced and held her forehead, "I-I didn't think he'd... LEAVE! For good!"
"Y-yeah, he's..." Lash heaved a noisy, shaky breath through his mouth, due to his nose being clogged. He squeezed his eyes shut and coughed the words, "He's gone."
"Well, GREAT, just great," Kepa wailed through tears as she firmly pressed in on her temple in a rub of desperate self soothe, the three hovered with each other in the cold, dreaded realization, the murmurs of silent crying the three filled the frozen-still lighthouse with. Kepa looked about, shook her head and looked entirely out of sorts, "It's almost comical. This is going to hit me eventually and... I'm not even going to want to live through it. I can't stay here, I can't keep living in this light house knowing he's gone, this is... Everything we've built together!"
"That's half the reason we're here," Lash's deep voice whimpered as he wiped his cheek, even though more tears would present themselves, "We're here to collect you. We can't possibly just leave you here to be by yourself, from here on out."
"Wh-what about the light house?" Kepa cried as she sorrowfully looked around, "I don't want it to go away."
"I'm going to preserve the structure to the code room, it won't be a tangible thing you can visit here on Juniper's shores, but it won't be deleted," Lash tenderly explained, "We want you to come live at the arena... We won't put you in Gideon's apartment, I know that's probably too close for comfort."
"N-No, I want to be put in it," Kepa pleaded, her heart raced with full uncertainty, she squeezed her eyes shut and coughed a small cry down to her hands, "I... It was a place of healing, for him, it was a place where we were intimate, the place has positive energy..."
"Are you sure?" Lash warily huffed, Kepa nodded and looked about in sorrowful regret. He nervously glanced into Mara's eyes, and as they caught in the whirl of understanding, Mara bobbed a small nod and encouraged Lash to carry on, "It'll be a place where we can be close by... Vanellope can come visit you, as well."
"His mother," Kepa urged in a spike of worry, big tears spilled down her cheeks as she finally lost the ability to properly sniffle due to her nose being so clogged, "What do we even do from here? How do we pick up and move on? It's not possible..."
"It's not," Lash whimpered as he finally erupted into a choke of full crying. He covered his eyes, leaned on his elbow, on the counter, and sobbed, as did Mara and Kepa. The three gripped in hand-holding, the lighthouse softly sung with their emits of full sorrow in Gideon's name, full regret and remorse from a million different angles, the scary and harsh reality that they now had to live with themselves and attempt to carry on without Gideon. The three urgently peered to each other through swollen, blurry, soaked eye contact as Lash's crackly, clogged voice pressed on, "It's not possible... It's not..."
"This is all my fault," Kepa cried as she rubbed her forehead, and though everyone played a part in this mess, Lash fervently shook his head and shrugged.
"There's a million different things all of us could've done to prevent this, even Gideon," Lash whined, "But, the could-have's won't bring him back... If he wins that stupid fucking tournament and somehow pulls his head out of his ass long enough to miss us, and returns... It's only then when the could-have's is relevant and applicable."
"Surely we're worth it," Kepa whispered sweetly, Lash shrugged and nodded.
"I'd like to think," He whimpered, to which Mara nodded as well. Lash lovingly grappled Kepa's hands and inhaled a deep, readied breath, "Kepa, Gideon is Sugar Rush royalty. His oldest sister, Tessa, is the Queen of Sugar Rush, Vanellope was Sugar Rush's first monarch. He is a Prince, through and through... These were the things he was garnering the courage to tell you, these were the things you should've known a very long time ago..."
"And, yes, he's my great Uncle, not my cousin," Mara murmured through her tears as she looked off and failed to remain composed.
"He's Sugar Rush's Prince?" Kepa uttered in staggering bewilderment, "Why did he want to keep this from me? Vanellope used to be the Queen?"
"Yeah, his father is Wreck-It Ralph," Lash choked a nostalgic, bittersweet laugh as Kepa gently perked her ears.
"Wreck-It Ralph, I think I've heard that name before," Kepa huffed in nasally wonderment, she long-blinked tears and grimaced as she glanced between Lash and Mara, "Where are they? Have we tried going to the internet to look for him?"
"No, no one's going, we're not losing anyone else!" Mara suddenly yelled, to which Lash flinched and urgently gripped his hand to Mara's back to settle her. Mara grimaced a cry into her hands and shook her head as she barely softened, "No one is leaving, NO ONE. We can't afford to lose anyone else."
"No one's going, it's okay," Lash mumbled, to which Kepa held her hand to her forehead in the gulp of dread that continued to hit her between the eyes, "We have proof that he left... My coding has the capability to see what the grid collects, the information of who is coming and going."
"You mean to tell me, you found the Arcade's wifi router hub and somehow was able to tell, by the grid alone, that Gideon had left," Kepa murmured in nervous disbelief, to which Lash inhaled a big breath through his mouth and rubbed his forehead.
"Mara and I haven't been entirely honest with you, either," Lash murmured as Kepa's big, glassy eyes held to his blue gaze in full, frozen shock. Lash peered to her with sorrowful honesty and squeezed her hand, "Mara and I are Users... How we came to be is another conversation in of itself."
"Users?" Kepa huffed in further disbelief, "But Users are humans, Users have... Unlimited power."
"Yes," Lash bobbed a nod, and though they weren't technically humans, they glanced to each other and knew, full well, they had the coding from one; Ace.
"C'mon, let's... Let's get you to the arena," Mara mumbled as she rubbed her nose and gently looked about Kepa's still, beautiful home, and though Kepa bobbed a hesitant nod and the three half-heartedly animated into motion, it was obvious the rest of the day was now theirs to simply exist in poison, the cold chokehold of harrowing grief, and all of its stages that the whole lot of them were now saddled with, was something Kepa wasn't sure any of them would properly survive through.
